Shades of the Loom
by Fallstavia
Summary: Exalted 1e Sidereal story.  A story of a Chosen of Secrets whose past and present commitment to a Prophecy will shape the world as surely as they have shaped her. The backstory and beginnings of probably my most popular antagonistic character.
1. Chapter 1

**The Year of the Snake, Mercury Era of the 1st Epoch of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate** (a few centuries before the Great Contagion).

_It's my daughter fault that my wife died and I'll never forgive her for that. I'm not sure where she went but I'm glad she's gone, the worthless girl. She was never any good at anything, not even when she was on her back for me._

"Navia...it's time to attend the Hinge Conclave. Are you ready to go?

The young Chosen of Secrets involuntarily crumpled the secret on Division Official Letterhead in her hand. A great shudder wracked her body as she fought for control. It had been a mistake to read it and an even bigger one to ruin departmental property but her Sifu had the courtesy to say nothing. Her eyes gleamed wetly when she looked up at Bent One Winged Angel, but she managed a smile.

"Of course, Sifu. I have the charts right here...somewhere...oh, there they are!"

Navia ducked her head guilty and swallowed hard. There were reasons Secrets Caste Sidereal rarely looked into their own lives. She had never measured up to any standard, had failed to keep her father happy, and was even directly guilty for what he secretly blamed her for. She knew she deserved her punishment, even if the other Chosen told her how wrong it was for her own father to have punished her in that way. Somehow, his methods seemed so much less important than the fact that she really was responsible for her mother's death. She had always been a failure.

As she was failing now. The Essence-wrought paper of the charts sprawled in all directions as she managed to bump the loop of heavenly ribbon off the collection. In a feat that even impressed herself, Navia caught every one before any touched the ground. But looking stupid in front of your Sifu was a Very Bad Thing.

Bent One Winged Angel did not look particularly impressed. Navia didn't blame him. She didn't impress herself either.

She had Exalted at the unusually early age of 10 but, for a reason only found in unknowable places in the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, she had not been found for training until she was almost 15. Perhaps that caused an impossible deficiency in her education for, despite the sorcerous teaching techniques of the Maiden's Children, Navia was still struggling after 5 years in her department. Her fighting techniques were faulty, her calligraphy substandard despite having excelled at it during her Shogunate education. She could not untie her tongue when she needed to and even her unpracticed eye could see the disapproval and quiet disgust on the faces of her coworkers.

"Then let's go." At least Bent One Winged Angel managed to avoid looking resigned most of the time. She knew because she watched him constantly. The Sidereal was a thousand years old but so handsome. He wore a gleaming white robe wrought from Ambrosia, garnished with starmetal and jade trappings of one kind or another. His dark hair was closely cut but meticulously full and well combed. Only the smallest lines in his face showed he was any older than she was now. He was so dreamy.

It was exceptionally hard when she failed him for Navia secretly loved her Sifu. If only she could win the favor of a God of Fortunate Circumstance and make sure Angel never looked at her file. When she had, she'd turned red from what was written there about her dreams and desires.

"Am I...what should..." Navia's tongue fought her and she ground her teeth in frustration. Damn his good looks and her clumsiness. "...Sifu..."

"No, you don't need to do anything but watch, Navia," Bent One Winged Angel said, a little sympathetically. All the Secrets Caste Sidereal had great skill in knowing exactly what she meant, what she meant to say. She thought a prayer to Iosaro, Goddess of Unprofessed Love, that Angel never looked too closely at her heart. She would die if he knew what her feelings for him were.

Navia looked down at herself and felt unworthy. She was not a particularly tall woman, not exceptional or athletic either. Sidereal training had toned and put muscle on a body that had always stayed thin on its own. Her luxuriously full red hair was her one pride and joy, a blanket of flame that caught the slightest breeze and fanned behind her in a pleasing way. She was also pleased than her murky brown eyes, her least favorite trait, had changed into the brilliant forest-emerald when her Exaltation had woken inside.

See? She was pretty, she'd always been told so, though of course all Golden Children were. Yet no matter how pleasing her appearance, she always disappointed people. If only she could make her Sifu happy. If only she could stop failing at everything. Even the scars on her arms attested her incompetence, a badge of shame that thankfully had gone unremarked on in the Bureau. She was glad no one noticed that a few were recent.

"Thank you Sifu," she said, after a while of walking. "What is this Conclave about?"

"It's a Hinge Conclave, as I said before," he said, not so sympathetically. "You must learn to mind your surroundings and remember everything you hear said. You should already know what this is about. The Hinge Prophecies were a collection of possible futures down the Bronze Path, in which Creation could turn in a number of directions."

He was not happy with her. He was never happy with her. Sometimes she wished he would just yell at her or hit her like her father had and get it over with. At least then he would feel better and she would feel worse and maybe then she'd try hard enough to succeed at something. Anything.

"May I ask which Hinge Prophecy this is about?" Navia hoped that was a good question, one that would cover her lack of foresight and show interest in the subject matter. The truth was, Prophecy was rather uninteresting to her. She'd much rather return to the libraries of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy. The secrets of the world were fascinating and she could easily see herself spending the next thousand years reading them all. Not that her department would let her. No, paperwork was So Very Important.

"The Pivot Child."

"That's pretty far down the list," Navia remarked thoughtfully, inwardly gleeful as her brain produced a vestigial memory of the Hinge Prophecies. "Are we that close to having them all traced out?"

"We are," Bent One Winged Angel chuckled. "We've had a hundred years since the Usurpation to work down a lot of the possible futures down the Bronze Path. At this point, only the unlikelys are left. Wish they were all as easy as the Fulcrum Hammer, though. It's nice when we find possible threads that can't occur in any future."

"Then I'm glad I get a chance to watch a Conclave, before we stop doing them."

"There will always be a need for a Conclave now and then," Bent One Winged Angel remarked dryly. "But in essence you are correct. Creation is more stable than it's been in centuries under the Shogunate. They should be good for a thousand years at least and we could certainly use the recovery time. You weren't alive during the Usurpation but there is still damage lying around we won't be able to fix for at least another century, that's how much of it there was."

"I can imagine!" Navia said. "My grandfather told me about it. He lost half his family back then." She looked up at the sunny sky, a reminder that the present Shogunate Era was not the way it had always been. Strange, that even a century after the overthrow of His Chosen, the Unconquered Sun still dominated the Games of Divinity. She hoped the rumors weren't true, that He'd allowed the Lawgivers to die so He'd be less distracted in the Games. The thought filled her with a terrible sadness and fear.

"Who will be there?" Navia asked at last, desperate to end the unbearable silence that stretched between them as they walked the golden streets of Heaven. The Shimmering Tower of Falling Stars was still some distance away, the Manse where the best prediction had always been done in Heaven.

"Only three others. The Pivot Child isn't considered likely enough to warrant a full Fellowship. From the Department of Endings, we have Concluding Emollient joining us. Also, Nuche Keru of the Cerulean Lute of Harmony. Sept Green Ivertre from the Journey's Caste will be the last, though we may have a Chosen of Battles joining us. It depends on what's needed. Others may attend."

"Chejop won't be there...will he?" Navia couldn't help but duck her head again at the sharp glance her Sifu shot her. "I'm sorry."

"You can't avoid him forever, Navia. There is no secret in the universe that can do that."

"I don't want to avoid him forever," Navia said. "...just until he forgets I ever existed." A ghost of a smile flickered on Bent One Winged Angel's face, despite the low volume she'd muttered with.

"In Heaven, you aren't just Navia. You'll never be just Navia again. Here, you're a Sidereal to the Gods and that has a kind of meaning you can't get away from. To other Sidereal, you're more than a coworker...you're someone they've known for thousands of years already."

"They knew Orloria Kessen," Navia grumbled. "I'm not her, I've never been her, I don't even know her."

"You are as much her as anything is anymore," Angel shrugged. "You inherited her Exaltation when she perished against the Wicked Man of Sands. She and Kejak were friends, in a way that's almost never seen in Heaven. You may not know him but he knows you and he's going to react to you that way."

"I can't live up to expectation like that!" Navia cried out, dancing out her agitation, startling a small party of a half-dozen Gods. Whispered comments and rude little sounds made her stop at once and hang her head until they were well out of earshot.

"Navia, settle down." Bent One Winged Angel shook his head at her. "You're going to have to get used to these things. You are a Chosen of Secrets, handpicked by the Maiden Herself. No one saw your Exaltation and, what's more, there's no record of it in the Forbidding Manse of Ivy. Like it or not, you've been called to a special job that only you can do and you already have the highest recommendation any Sidereal can have. Get used to it."

"Yes, Sifu," Navia said with as much humility as she could emote. Honestly, she didn't feel humble, she felt unworthy. But, like he said, it was time to get used to it.

They made the rest of the trip in silence. Navia used the time to try to put together some composure. By the time they reached the Manse, she was doing a credible impression of her Sifu. Now if only she could keep it up when people were actually talking to her.

Bent One Winged Angel met up with Sept Green Ivertre outside the Shimmering Tower of Falling Stars. The green-haired Chosen of Journeys nodded to both of them, even her. That was nice of him, and unexpected.

"So, it's the Pivot Child we're looking at," Sept Green said, as the three of them stepped into the celestial lift that began carrying them hundreds of stories into the air.

"Apparently," Bent One Winged Angel answered. "Not very likely but important enough to warrant this Conclave. All of the Hinge Prophecies are, of course."

"Well, I don't want the world to end," Sept Green muttered. He grinned a little when Navia snickered despite herself. "And if a child could save Creation, then we need to know the details in case that Hinge comes true."

The doors of the celestial lift opened up to the vast skies of Yu-Shan. It was night-time, Navia realized, amused that Luna had taken the lead so suddenly. Five years she'd been in Heaven and still that was hard to get used to.

Sidereal stood about the complicated orrery that spun a flat plane of Creation around the stars and the Incarna, each busy in his own task. It was a little strange to realize she was the only woman here. It was stranger to realize that none of the other Sidereal had even noticed her. For a girl like Navia, with her past, her gender and everyone else's would always be salient, something to notice in every social setting. But these Chosen were far too preoccupied with uncovering Destiny to think about these kinds of things.

It was one of the few comforts she had in the Bureau. At least among the Chosen, she would always be safe. They might discipline her but they would never use sex to do so. That shame would finally be in her past.

"We're about ready to go," said an older man, slender and graceful in his blue Stardust robes. Nuche Keru was in the same generation as Kejak, having Exalted within a century of him, and his lined face looked frighteningly competent. Navia privately thought there was something suspicious about a Child of Venus who wasn't friendly.

"We are ready to go," said Concluding Emollient. She'd met the Chosen of Endings only once before, at an inter-departmental social function, but he had shown her a rare kindness by delicately informing her of a social blunder she'd made in greeting Nara-O too familiarly. He had quickly taught her the proper address and how to make it up. Out of every Sidereal up here, he was the one she was most glad to see.

The last Sidereal, obviously a Chosen of Battles by the red-threaded starmetal mail he wore, was not one she recognized. He didn't even look at her, not that she could really tell beneath the helm that concealed his face. Whoever he was, the Son of Mars looked like he'd just gotten back from a battlefield.

"Then, surround and prepare." Navia moved next to the orrey and began laying out the charts where she knew they needed to go, adding the Ivy Manse calculations to those already penned down on the paper of other departments. Around her, the Sidereal closed rank and stood circling the orrey. She could feel the Essence raising the hairs on the back of her arms. Of course, that could be the Manse.

"Let's have the first line," Nuche Keru said. Although Bent One Winged Angel was nominally in charge, as the Secrets Caste usually were, Nuche Keru's reputation as an astrologer was already legendary. She knew he'd worked on almost every Conclave after and including the Great Prophecy. Maybe that's why he didn't look friendly. Maybe he'd seen too much.

"_Born from the Dragons, meant for the Sky_," Angel quoted. "Though you should know, you're the one who wrote it down in the first place." A couple of the Sidereal chuckled at that. Nuche Keru did not.

"There was a lot to write. You should know. Oh, my mistake, only Concluding Emollient was there." The not too subtle snub quieted the other Chosen and Navia desperately wished she could be somewhere else. She didn't like it when her fellows fought. "Might as well read the whole thing outright first. Angel?"

The Prophecy of the Pivot Child 

_Born from the Dragons, meant for the Sky,_

_Serenity, disillusionment and recognition and reverence,_

_Peace she will bring, against the Hammer she stands._

_Before her, the light gathers, the day of remembrance,_

_With hands that bring judgment, she will know her place,_

_And through it, bring salvation to all._

_A Hinge of the world, upon her fate turns,_

_Against fallen light and conquered darkness, she'll champion,_

_Through brotherhood, love and faith, life's chance._

"There's no question the Child will be a Celestial Exalt," Concluding Emollient said. All attention instantly went to him. Eyes moved back and forth between each other and, one by one, they reluctantly nodded.

"Born from Dragon-Blooded parents," Nuche Keru added. "Or at least one parent."

"Yes, I think we can feel the line's mined out. Shall we move on?" Sept Green Ivertre didn't look as rude as he sounded, Navia thought. He was only impatient to get to the meat of the prophecy. Now that she was watching a Conclave herself, she knew why they were so eager. There was something thrilling about mapping the future, about knowing for a fact what would happen if this thread became true. Maybe Prophecy wasn't so boring after all.

"_Serenity, disillusionment and recognition and reverence_," Bent One Winged Angel said.

"A cycle of faith," Sept Green said with a frown. "A spiritual journey. She'll learn, discover what she's learned is false, see the truth and come to genuine faith."

"Good," Nuche Keru nodded. "So far, it's fairly personal. What else?"

"_Peace she will bring, against the Hammer she stands_," Angel said.

"This is big," Concluding Emollient whispered. "When this happens, many things will end and many things will begin."

"She'll be involved in a great conflict," the mysterious Chosen of Battles said. "No, two conflicts for the Prophecy."

"She has the potential for actually establishing peace across Creation," said Nuche Keru, clearly marveling at the idea.

"I'm worried about the Hammer," Concluding Emollient said.

"We know what the Hammer is," Bent One Winged Angel said. "The Fulcrum Hammer. They are the only Hinge Prophecies that reference each other and, in fact, contradict each other."

"Not necessarily contradict," Nuche Keru argued. "It's possible they interlink in ways we don't understand yet."

"There was no future we could see in which the Fulcrum Hammer came to pass," Concluding Emollient said matter-of-factly. "Which makes the Pivot Child Prophecy even more unlikely."

"Shall we get on with it?" Sept Green sighed. "There's a lot to do and I don't want to spend all night..." he looked up as the Sun abruptly rose, chasing Luna from Her lead. "...all day arguing about it."

Navia watched the proceedings in absolute fascination. One by one, they mapped out each line of the Prophecy with an eerie intuitive understanding that each seemed to share. She knew the Charms they employed, even if she didn't have them herself yet. With one exception.

Her Caste Mark was showing by the end of the Conclave but there was one thing she knew for certain. Auspicious Prospects of Secrets, the one useful Charm for this she knew, confirmed every conclusion. Everything they said could happen would happen that way, if it happened at all. For the first time, Navia felt like a true Sidereal. She was in the know, understanding prophetic words in a way no mortal could. It was remarkable, it was incredible. It made her dislike of Prophecy before seem...childish.

"Are you ready to go, Navia?" Bent One Winged Angel's hand came down on her shoulder and she jumped. Now that was embarrassing. When all your co-workers seemed to be able to anticipate everything before it happened, when you worked for the Bureau of Fate, especially for the Division of Secrets, being surprised was just lame.

"I suppose I am, Sifu," Navia sighed, turning back to look over the side of the Manse, out over the breadth of Yu-Shan. The banner of her flame-colored hair caught a heavenly breeze and waved, its own little flag among the sea of heraldry out there. "I have a lot to think about."

"Why don't you take some time to do that, then?"

Her Sifu's offer surprised her, caused her turn back to look at him wonderingly again. He smiled pleasantly and inclined his head toward the celestial lift. The other Sidereal had departed at some point and she, so lost in thought, hadn't even noticed them leave.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Sifu."

"I find the Loom of Fate to be the perfect place for meditation and contemplation," Bent One Winged Angel suggested. "I know you have paperwork but paperwork can wait. I can see you've caught a bite of what we were doing and I think it's important that you take the time to digest it."

"You mean...time off?" Navia blinked, feeling as she did so that her eyes were huge.

"A few hours won't cause the Forbidding Manse to collapse," Angel chuckled. "Take the rest of the day off. Think things over. Perhaps the Loom might even show you something important. It does, sometimes. It's Primordial work and not even we fully understand it."

"Thank you Sifu!"

They rode the lift down together and Navia was lost in frantic thought. She'd only been to the Loom a dozen times or so and she'd never been there alone. Each time, it had been for one reason or another. She shuddered involuntarily at the memory of that time she'd spent 3 days straight weaving Destiny with her Sifu. She'd slept for a whole day straight afterwards and then spent the next three days trying to catch up on the paperwork she'd missed from sleeping through the work day.

From what she understood, she had quite a bit of Destiny implementation ahead of her. Joy.

Bent One Winged Angel strode off to catch a dragon boat, leaving Navia by herself. There were plenty of Gods about, so close to the Jade Pleasure Dome and the Bureaus, but for once she didn't stop to stare at any of them. With quickening steps, Navia set off for the Loom of Fate and it was all she could do to avoid running.

The plain white dome came into sight quickly enough. It was the most ordinary, boring building in all of Yu-Shan. Navia loved looking at it because she could actually concentrate when she was. The rest of Heaven had so much eye-candy that it was amazing she remembered her name by the time she got to work each day.

Navia hurried into the building, walked briskly down one hallway...then another...then took four left turns and found herself before the Loom of Fate.

Standing on a balcony, she saw the myriad wyld threads of possibility threading into a Pattern of such impossibility that her mind hurt trying to grasp it. From the Pattern, great shimmering folds of the Tapestry spun out, for the most part finished thanks to the industrious work of the thousands of Pattern Spiders working hell-bent on the Pattern. Only a few hundred or so were spared to deal with the already-finished Tapestry but she could see each working double-time to tidy up a loose thread, fix a thin point in the weaving, or patch a whole by sewing new material over the old.

Each thread contained a person's life, a thing's existence, some facet of Creation. Once again, as she had the first time she'd been here, Navia had to lean on the handrails of the balcony for support. All of existence was right there. Could you even imagine what would happen if a fire got in here? Or...someone who meant harm to the Tapestry?

"That's what you will prevent."

Navia spun at the voice, blushing despite herself. She was allowed to be here, she was! She hated that her first reaction to surprise was embarrassment.

But then she forgot all that in a second when she found herself staring...at herself.

But not herself. No, Navia had never looked like that!

The serene woman before her looked scarcely older than she was but she carried herself with a poise and confidence Navia had never dreamed possible. She wore a simple green Stardust robe, styled in a way of the new Immaculate faith, and a small pendant with strange runic heraldry hung from her neck. More surprisingly, she was...entirely bald.

"The Loom of Fate encompasses all possibility," the other Navia said, gesturing, taking in the whole of the Loom with the small motion. "Here, one can catch glimpses of the past or future, of what could be. It was built by the Primordials, the great Engine to drive Creation forward, and no one but they fully understand its workings. It is capable of things we know should be impossible, though. For instance...it is even possible to meet oneself. As I did, when I was your age."

"So you're a future me?" Navia wondered aloud. She was astonished at the transformation. She couldn't imagine cutting the beautiful red hair that was her father's only gift to her. But the steely determination in her eyes...yes, Navia wanted that.

"Correct," the monk Navia said, folding her hands together in a way that spoke of habit. "Of course, it's possible to meet a facsimile of yourself in the Wyld but there is no opportunity for us to discuss the metaphysical implications here in depth. There's much for us to cover now and little time. You have just come from a Conclave where you heard the Pivot Child Prophecy forecasted."

"That's right!" Navia agreed.

"This Prophecy will come true. And it will come true through you."

"Wait a minute...I'm the Pivot Child?" Navia shook her head, her mind still reeling from the ceremony itself. "That can't be, Destiny doesn't build Prophecy around us. We're the hired help, not the show."

"Correct," the other Navia agreed, smiling just a little as if giving herself permission to show that much emotion. What could have happened to herself to make her this way? How could she do it? Navia envied her serenity.

"Then how can the Pivot Child Prophecy come true through me?"

"Because the Pivot Child will be our daughter."

"No way!" Navia turned away from her monkish other-self and stared out into the Loom. Unfortunately, the infinite tide of Everything was not ideal for calming one's thoughts. Navia grimaced and looked back at herself. "I can't even imagine having children. Who's the father?"

"I don't know yet," the other Navia admitted. "But I will find out soon. You see, I know only what I'm telling you now because when I was you, it is what I told myself."

"No, no, don't start talking like that," Navia groaned. "Let's keep this simple. You have things you want to say to me so say them and I'll...sort it out later."

"Very good," the monk Navia said, nodding approvingly in just the way Bent One Winged Angel always did. It always looked clumsy when she practiced it in the mirror. On this Navia, it didn't look clumsy at all. "Someday, we will give birth to the Pivot Child. That Child is going to save Creation from the greatest snarl in the Tapestry imaginable, Navia, but it won't happen if we fail."

"I'm ready!" Navia said, knowing it was a lie.

"It will not be soon but that is just as well. For now, the most important thing you can do is train. You must excel, Navia, you must overcome our past, master the astrological houses of our Bureau, and, above all else, you must join the Bronze Faction."

"Well, it's not like I'd join the Gold," Navia sniffed. "You know who...our mother was. And what she did. They'd never trust a Sidereal who...led the others to her own Solar mother. Not even if Mother was a Night Caste who'd murdered thousands."

"I know," the older Navia said, sympathy in her eyes. "You must set aside your desire for absolution, Navia. Father will never forgive us. He will go to his grave resenting us and will answer then for his own crimes. That he may feel justified in his sins does not excuse them, nor does it excuse your obligation to grow beyond them. You must accept this truth, Navia, this Secret. You must move past it, as I did, or within a hand of years you surely will succeed and cut deep enough to die. Set the blade aside, Navia, and focus on what is before you. Once you do, you will find life...much easier than it is now."

"You have no idea," muttered Navia. Then she blushed when she realized who she was talking to. The other Navia did not remark on the slip to her credit, or was that hers too? "So, is Kejak still...weird about us in the future?"

"There is much I could say of the future but I will not," the other Navia said, shaking her head slightly. "I do not know that you will be as strong as I have become if I give you these answers in advance. When I was your age, the Navia I met did not. Also, you could very well change what is for me if you choose to go in a direction I did not and that puts the Pivot Child in danger. By following what I am telling you, the Child will be preserved, Navia. That is all that matters."

"How can one Child really be so important?" Navia demanded. "If you're asking me to sacrifice my life to this...cause, I want to know why."

"Much will change in Creation over the next thousand years." Navia gasped at the number and what it implied about the woman giving it. "By my Age, Creation is sorely in need of a Savior. You will make that possible. I am also concerned about the Fulcrum Hammer, the other side of the Hinge Prophecy. Without the Pivot Child to oppose it, the Hammer will destroy the world. Yes, it is that serious, Navia."

"...why me?" she asked in a meek voice she couldn't help.

"Only the Maiden of Secrets knows that," the monkly Navia said, not unkindly. "But She must have her reasons. Surely, this is why we were Chosen, Navia. Do not despair at this responsibility. Instead, look at it for what it is; an opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"Correct. You don't fit in," the older Navia remarked bluntly. "You've never felt capable in your whole life so far. Our father raped us and thought nothing of it...and neither did we because we didn't think we mattered that much. Our scars prove it. That is what the Pivot Child means to us, Navia, what it will mean to you. It proves two things; that we matter and that our life is valuable. By our choices, Creation may be saved or damned. This is your opportunity to do something that makes a difference, for everyone. Will you take it?"

The older Sidereal's words swept her up and she gasped as her future unfolded before her. Through Auspicious Prospects of Secrets, she knew everything her older self was telling her was true. The Pivot Child Prophecy WOULD come true...if she let it. It was up to her to bear the child who would save the world. And apparently, she was the only one who could.

"I know you're scared," said her counterpart, even as the first ice-cold trickles of fear laced her veins. "I know this will be hard for you. But it will also be glorious. You will see so much, Navia, grow so much...there is so much pain ahead but so much joy." Tears glimmered beneath the serene Sidereal's composure and the other woman smiled at her. "I remember, Navia, what it was to be you. Oh...the Maidens bless you. Hard times will come but you're going to be so strong afterwards, stronger than you can even dream of."

"Really?" Navia asked. Yes, she was afraid of the responsibility, afraid of the future pain and dark things she saw lurking in the eyes of herself. But she also saw the hope that lay inside of her future self and she felt it rising in her as well. She'd seen the future now and she knew, one way or another, she was going to be okay.

"Really," answered another voice. Disbelieving, Navia looked behind her and saw herself...again. Only she was even more different. The monkish robes were still there but the wavy hair of fire she cherished had grown back, waist-length again. Most noticeably, beneath the green Stardust cloth, this Navia's stomach bulged, heavy with child. It was shocking to a 20 year old girl who had never thought of even touching another man, much less carrying one's child, to see herself pregnant. Yet this Navia looked even more capable, even more confident, radiant in her maternity.

"Are you...?"

"Older, yes," the pregnant Navia said, smiling with the same small serenity she had before. "And I carry the Pivot Child. As you will someday long distant. And as you will someday very soon," she finished, turning to the bald Navia.

The real Navia, the only one who actually existed at the moment, was having a hard time reminding herself of that. After all, both of these Navia's were only possibility. This was not a Prophecy she had to take up. By the Maidens, it would be the simplest thing to avoid when it came down to it. Just keep her legs together!

But here, looking at two older versions of herself, she realized what the monk-like Navia had said was true. She did have hope now. She could see with her own eyes that someday, if she chose to, she would carry the Pivot Child. In its own subtle way, the Loom of Fate had given her absolute proof that she could make a difference.

And she wanted to.

"Thank you, both of you," Navia said, suddenly overcome with tears of gratitude. "You've..."

"We know," said the oldest. "Now go, Navia. You have a long life ahead of you, with much to do and many things to learn. I'm afraid this Navia and I must talk privately, for what I have to say is not meant for your ears yet. Nor is any detail of what has happened here for anyone else to know. No one can know of your role in the Pivot Child Prophecy, Navia. Be content. As you can see, in time you will find out why and hear what I have to say to this one."

"I'll be ready!" Navia said fiercely. She couldn't be as composed as they were but she didn't have to be yet. She had maybe a thousand years before she needed to. But, by Heaven, she was going to, now that she knew she could. "Thank you both! I'll be careful and I'll make it, I promise!"

Both Navia's smiled at her, radiating peaceful contentment that washed away a lifetime of doubt, fear and frustration. Navia met their eyes one at a time, the monk-like Navia and the pregnant Navia, and then she bowed low. "Sifu."

Their smiles widened. Then, Navia turned and left the Loom of Fate. She'd had all the thinking she needed.

She finally knew what she was capable of. She had seen with her own eyes that she would be okay. The Navia of the future seemed...happy. That meant she would be too. That hope was worth holding out for, that hope and the promise of saving the world through a Pivot Child.


	2. Chapter 2

**The 12th Day of Resplendent Wood, 602 in the Year of Our Empress**

Iselsi Navia watched herself go with a strange mixture of regret, relief and nostalgia. It was an amazing opportunity, to truly see what she had been in a way no one else had ever accomplished. Still, she was glad for the distance of age. The marks of domination her father had left on her had faded to dust long ago but they were still fresh on that Navia. All of the painful adolescence of a new Sidereal, the doubt, and being without purpose...yes, those were experiences Navia was relieved to do without.

"She'll be fine," the pregnant Navia said next to her. The real Navia turned to her future self and bowed her head respectfully.

"We have much to talk about, Navia," she said to herself. "How much time do we have?"

"More than that one had," reassured the older Sidereal. "Which is well. There is much to talk about. I know you burn with the questions I had when I was you, so ask them."

"Do you know why I never mentioned the Great Contagion?" Iselsi Navia said at once. "You know how many people died. Why wouldn't I have tried to prevent that catastrophe?"

"An excellent question," observed the pregnant Navia. "Why didn't you warn her?"

"Because, when I was her, I was not warned by who I am now," Navia answered. She schooled her irritation, keeping her face composed with a millennia of practice. She was not the undisciplined child she'd been, no matter how fresh the reminder of her youth. "I was reluctant to deviate in the slightest from the script of things to come. What little has been unveiled from the Pivot Child Prophecy only convinces me all the more that it is essential the Child be born, critical to Creation's survival, and I would not risk that for even a million lives saved from the Great Contagion. Not for all who died."

"Very good," the older Navia agreed. "Nor did I. Now, let me tell you what I was told when I was you. The Great Contagion could not have been prevented."

"Do we ever find out how it started?" Iselsi Navia wondered.

"No," said her future self grimly, her mouth firming into a flat line. "And because of that, no warning of ours would be heeded by the Bureau. I will tell you what I was told when I was you by who I am now; we could not have changed anything."

"How can you be so sure?" Navia asked archly. "We both understand Fate perfectly well. We know how to weave Destiny and change the future."

"But we didn't. If true time travel were possible, if who I am now is actually real in the context of your reality, then changing the past is possible. We do understand Destiny, however, and we both know how impossible it is to change what has happened. Once woven, the Tapestry is immutable. It can be changed but it cannot be unwoven. Is there a possibility where we warned her and she changed the future? What do you think?"

"That cannot be a genuine possibility," Iselsi Navia said, shaking her head. "Because the past has already happened for me. I am not a possibility anymore. I am, for present purposes, the real Navia. After a thousand years, I understand more but not enough. This is my second question. How can this encounter be happening? If I am the real Navia, who was that young Sidereal I reassured and steered on the correct path? The past cannot change. So what was that? And if, someday I become you, who will I be right now when I'm talking to her? A...ghost of spent possibility?"

"Navia, consider this," said the older Navia, thoughtfully tapping her lips with an index finger. The mannerism was interesting. It was not one Navia herself presently used. "The Loom of Fate was not built by the Gods. The Primordials created it as the great Engine of the World, creating and sustaining the known. You told yourself that just now. The past cannot change, in part, because in a fundamental way the Loom says it cannot. Do you see?"

"So all of the strange things that have happened to people in here, ever, may be true impossibilities anywhere else but not necessarily so here," Navia mused aloud. "That is strange and it seems contradictory."

"Perhaps it is," the other one said. "Nonetheless, we are having this conversation. When you become me, you will believe as I do; that whether I am in some way determining my past or not is ultimately irrelevant. I tell you what I was told because I believe in this future, Navia, and have faith because the Pivot Child is almost ready to be born."

"That supercedes all else," Iselsi Navia agreed. "Now, tell me who the father is. No prophetic forecasting has revealed that information to me."

"Nor will it for a while yet. Despite that, you must find him and conceive a child before then." The older Navia smiled, a little sadly the present one thought. Iselsi Navia wondered at the long red hair. Had she promoted out of the Capital Convention altogether? Was she no longer the Spymaster of the All-Seeing Eye or one of the Immaculate Order's most revered monks? Was Iselsi Navia just Navia once again?

"Tell me what I must do."

"Several things must occur, Navia." The older one winced slightly and pressed a hand to her stomach. Navia stepped forward and, with a hesitation she could hardly have explained, she reached forward and touched the swell of her other self's stomach. Indeed, the child was kicking. Navia felt wonder bubble up inside of her, as fresh as the feelings of that child-self she'd just been talking to. That was her daughter inside of there. A daughter not yet conceived but hers. Hers and Creation's. A reverential awe swept over her, followed by a deep instinct to ward and protect the unborn child.

"She's amazing," Iselsi Navia whispered, feeling at the burgeoning thread of the child's life. If she looked over her shoulder at the Tapestry, would she be able to see the Pivot Child in it? How could she feel her daughter's destiny, indistinct as it was, when she hadn't been conceived yet? How was any of this possible?

"Only the Maiden knows," the older Navia answered, as if knowing her thoughts. Come to think of it, she likely did. Iselsi Navia straightened and gave a curt nod to her counterpart.

"Tell me."

"You will know him by his blood and by his name," her other self said. "The Pivot Child is to be born from the Dragons and he will be near enough. He will be named for his mother, yet not by his mother. He will be chaste, pure, and your eyes will reveal him to you. This is how you shall know who the father will be."

"There's more," Iselsi Navia said, following the intuition her mastery of Fate gave her.

"You cannot force him," the pregnant Navia said, looking a little more sad as she said it. What secret was she hiding? Navia was a manager of the Capital Convention now, on the verge of admittance to the Bronze Faction's Inner Circle. She was trusted by Kejak himself and she was very, very good at what she did. A pity this other Navia was at least as skilled.

If only the necessity of prophecy did not prevent her from pulling every fact she needed from this other Sidereal, whether it was herself or not. She would make any sacrifice for the Prophecy, even a self not yet her. This Navia was pregnant with the Pivot Child, though, and that was what mattered. She had to have faith in allowing this conversation to go its course, have faith that her success would be certain that way.

"What am I to do?" she asked respectfully, aware that her inner thoughts were known to this other woman and not caring in the least. If this future Navia was anything like she was now, she would understand the ruthless practicality that defined their very existence.

"He must fall in love with you," said her other self. "The Pivot Child can only be borne in love. You may bind him with Wanting and Fearing but you cannot compel him with it. You may create those feelings but he must be free to choose."

"I see," Navia said, concealing her irritation with practiced smoothness. "What else?"

"You must conceive. But not before you see the correct sign. You must wait for a Second Circle error in the Capital Convention to occur. You will know it for it will involve a Dragon-Blooded youth paradoxically Exalting. What you must remember, Navia, is to watch for the sign of paradoxical Exaltation. This is important. Even the Heavens will bear witness to this paradox for it will occur at the end of two sequential lunar eclipses. In fact...you will see the eclipses first."

Iselsi Navia wondered at her counterpart's words. Obviously, there was more to this sign that her words immediately showed. She wasn't an amateur at this. The only reason she would have emphasized the point in such a heavy-set way was to trigger the appropriate memory of those words when the real sign occurred. Why was she not being plain?

Obviously because the future Navia she had not been, when her counterpart had been her.

"I understand," she replied. The future Navia smiled a little more, as if understanding and approving of her masked internal reasoning.

"I have a few words of advice and then I must go, for you're already late for your dance and I...I will deliver Yezenjen sometime tomorrow."

"Yezenjen?" Iselsi Navia asked, wondering at the name. "That means Lion of Heaven, doesn't it?"

"It does," the older Navia said, with a slight smirk. "Perhaps pretentious but suitable for such a child as she will be. But we must hurry. You don't want to keep Ragara Yelaren waiting."

"I know," Iselsi Navia sighed. "I hoped that my promotion to manager in the Capital Convention would get me out of these annoying things. I'm relieved that my duties to instruct Iriszy will be done soon."

"I remember how time-consuming instruction was," her future self commiserated. "The burdens of our dealings with the Scarlet Throne. Put it from your mind for the moment. To permit the Pivot Child Prophecy to pass, you will have to do some hard things, harder than any you've ever done. No matter the price, remember that she is worth it. No life is more important than this one." She patted her stomach and smiled at the child inside of her. "Also...you will likely conceive our daughter and never see the father again. But..." Navia paused meaningfully. "Although that is usually the Division's approach to moving Destiny, to fade into memory, you may wish to consider treasuring what time you can snatch with him. You and I will know very little comfort for a great while, Navia. When all else fails, he may offer some."

"I will consider your advice," Navia said, folding her hands together and stretching her fingers out. "Have a safe delivery, Navia. We both know the stakes. I pray Heaven itself watches over this child."

"It will," the older Navia said, sighing softly. "It will. I will."

Iselsi Navia walked past her pregnant self and moved down the corridor until it turned straight down into another corridor. She set foot on the branch, feeling gravity twisting about her to reorient her, when she heard herself call back. Turning, she saw her counterpart lift a hand and wave.

"One thing more, Iselsi Navia," her other self said. "A day may come where you feel you can trust E'lial. Do so then for he has done much to further our cause in my day. But no one, absolutely no one else can know. At all costs, you and he are the only living people who can connect the Pivot Child to you until she is born. Afterwards, it will not matter but before then, you must avoid detection. At all costs," her counterpart enunciated clearly.

And then she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**The 12th Day of Resplendent Wood, 602 in the Year of Our Empress**

"Where were you, old friend?" Ragara Yelaren asked, evidencing curiosity. Iselsi Navia adjusted the decorative shawl over the gorgeous blue Dynastic dress and stepped close enough for confidential conversation. Both of them carried field-issue jade rings that would be worth an absolute fortune from the Houses, if the Dragon-Blooded were capable of their manufacture. As long as they wore them, they had no fear from Terrestrial snooping Charms.

"Just a small matter to conclude in Heaven," Navia answered politely. Then, she smiled a little to remove any sting from her words. "It's good to see you again." She'd worked with Yelaren for quite a long while, seeing as they were both on the Capital Convention. They'd been the closest thing she had to a best friend for the better part of 500 years. She was pleased that, so far, there was little evidence of resentment from the sapphire-eyed Chosen of Serenity. After all, he was her senior by a century yet she'd been promoted over him. He'd never cared much for secrets and the enigmatic nature of her department had never settled well on him. It was remarkable they got along.

"Quite a party Iriszy has put together, don't you think?" The Chosen of Serenity looked quite serene as he surveyed the august assemblage of Dragon-Blooded. In his handsome blue suit, the blonde man with spiky hair fit in perfectly...but of course he would. He was in his element here. Truthfully, it was an amazing party by Creation's standards. Iselsi Navia was not the sort to care for such, though, not even the ones in Heaven.

"Of course. She is missing no opportunity to forge alliances and start foundation work for relations between her prospective household and the other Houses. Iriszy is intelligent. Although this is only her first child, she may reasonably expect the Scarlet Empress to write her name in the books and give her a House in the years ahead."

"Yes, she has the imperial bloodline of course," Yelaren shrugged. "And the ambition, the temperament, the cunning...Mnemon might be careful. She was the only other one so ambitious at her age."

"I suppose you would know," Navia sighed. "Iriszy is far too ambitious for my liking but you know my heart. I never quite had the heart for teaching again after my first died."

"Yes, it's a hard thing to lose a student," Yelaren said sympathetically. "I wish it could have been different but no Terrestrial lives forever and Iselsi had a good run in her time."

"I wish it had not been necessary to demolish her House," Navia said wistfully.

"It was out of respect for you that we waited as long as we did," Ragara Yelaren said. "We both know the necessity. Dangerous complications in the future might have arisen if their ambition hadn't been coaxed back then. Her death likely saved a great deal of trouble for us now."

"I'm sure you're already planning Iriszy's daughter's matches. That should give you something to do." Yelaren didn't contest her change of the subject. She was relieved, and appreciated that her relief was the reason he allowed the matter to drop. He was a good friend.

"There's always too much to do," Yelaren sighed, brushing at his hair to make sure the spikes stayed straight. "Even at a party, we're working. Sad, isn't it?" Navia looked into the wall-length mirror at the back of the room, saw the two of them reflected with myriads of Terrestrial walking and socializing about them. Two loners in a roomful of people. Such was the fate, if the use of that word could be forgiven, of the Sidereal.

"Why don't I introduce you to Da'nashay? I imagine you'll like him quite a bit better than your latest protégé."

"I know all about Da'nashay," Iselsi Navia said skeptically. "I like him simply because of how much Iriszy doesn't but neither is he someone I care to meet." It was not particularly fair to her student, to be sure, but there it was. She had known Iriszy since she was a baby and she loved her as if she was her own. But that didn't mean she liked her.

"You'd be surprised, come on." The Chosen of Serenity tugged on her arm, nearly dragging her across the floor, pausing only to whisper once more before they caught up to a man in articulated red jade armor. While he was not the only man in the room wearing armor, or armed with a daiklave for that matter, he was undoubtedly the most deadly-looking. "You'll love him if you get to know him. Just back from the field! If only I could get a good marriage for him, he's the most stubborn man! ...Ah, Captain Da'nashay, how good it is to see you again!"

"Ragara Yelaren," Da'nashay said, inclining his head respectfully as he turned around.

The captain was a handsome man, in a worn, rough, craggy sort of way. His jaw was solid and square, his shiny black hair smoothed down the back of his neck, and the stubble on his face almost looked decoratively intentional. His skin was most unusually colored, in shades of red and purple like a sunset...or a distant flame.

When he continued his turn to face them, Navia's eyes widened as she looked into a remarkable set of his own. It was rare to see green eyes of quite that deep color. In fact, they were exactly her color, if lacking the stars hers had. How beautiful.

"Ah," Ragara Yelaren coughed apologetically, as the eye contact between the two lingered into an awkward length. "Please, Captain. Allow me to introduce Iselsi Navia, a Dynast of...excellent qualifications."

"Navia," the captain repeated and he smiled slowly. Thankfully, it was not a lecherous smile but rather one of genuine pleasure. Navia found herself smiling back at him without having to force it. It was the closest to a real smile that she'd come in...centuries, surely. "It's not common to meet a woman willing to confess that House name."

"I have little use for pretense," Iselsi Navia said, dipping into a slow curtsey to cover the irony that threatened her composure. Pretense was all there was to a Sidereal's existence, and to this Resplendent Destiny for that matter. This Iselsi Navia was the spymaster of the All-Seeing Eye and, thus, discreet yet indiscriminate simultaneously. So she employed both before the handsome Terrestrial.

"How refreshing," Da'nashay nodded, as if answering a question she'd posed. "I have no use for it. A soldier in the field has little enough time as it is. I don't care for games."

"A remarkable sentiment in the Scarlet Dynast," Navia said. "Tell me, Captain, why would a self-professed unpretentious soldier who doesn't like games choose to spend his time here?"

"It was a personal request of my sister, Iriszy," Da'nashay said. His face slipped into a neutral mask that was surprisingly good but his true feelings were plain before Navia's practiced eye. There was obviously no love lost between them. "I'm only in the City for a few days before I deploy again. Trust me, I would much rather be elsewhere." His disclosure was truly remarkable, given that anyone with any interest would overhear his words. Da'nashay was either very bad at politics or he was deliberately being bad.

"I understand entirely," Iselsi Navia said smoothly, unconcerned with anyone noticing what she had to say. "I am also here for the same reason."

"I have rounds to make. The burdens of heritage." He was obviously reluctant to leave as he looked at her. It had been a long time since a man had looked at her the way he was looking at her now. She couldn't ever recall it feeling pleasant like this look was. No trace at all of the lingering fear that used to crawl in her stomach when she saw a man with lust in his eyes. "If you don't mind, I would like the chance to meet you again sometime. It's rare that I encounter someone direct and it would be a shame if it didn't happen again. May I?"

"Certainly," Navia said politely. "I look forward to it." She bowed her head slightly and he did precisely the same. The smooth, subtle grind of jade against jade faded as Da'nashay in his armor moved on toward his initial destination.

"Quite a man," Ragara Yelaren muttered admiringly, and with more than casual interest. "He seems quite taken with you. What a pity." He chuckled, as if making a joke.

Navia felt only the ice-cool of reality enfold her once more. She knew what he was and she knew what she was. Attractive or not, she was not given to flings and her job permitted no other kind of relationship.

"He's not what I expected," Iselsi Navia said at last. "Iriszy painted him a dangerous, manipulative, cruel man. Naturally I have seen those signs in her all along but I just assumed he had them too. They are both children of the Scarlet Empress, after all."

"I know. He's sadly doomed." Ragara Yelaren sighed regretfully. "Did you know the man's still a virgin? Seems to have no interest in relationships at all. Career soldier, through and through, and no head for politics. But yes, doomed. He's never been at risk in battle because we've scheduled him to die at the hand of his sister. I understand she considers him her chief rival. It's likely to happen very soon, I think."

"An amusing rival," Navia whispered, still numb by the unexpected intimacy of the contact. For a reserved Sidereal, it was rather bracing to interact honestly, with no roles or ranks to play. Even the spymaster Iselsi Navia was just like her in this respect. "He will never be a political threat to her. He's never going to found a House, as she will. You're right, Yelaren, she'd probably kill him on her own. Childhood hate twisted into something else, it leaves her no room to do otherwise, even if he is innocent of its cause. He has perhaps a day to live." Fate spoke through her and she knew what she said would happen, as surely as one step came after another. "Whose planned it?"

"Nuche Keru's," Ragara Yelaren said, his voice unexpectedly quiet. "The tree has to be carefully pruned at times, Navia. It may not make much sense, even to a Chosen of Secrets, but the Cerulean Lute of Harmony is very careful about these things. We've had decades to forecast what's happening now and it's necessary that this one die. A shame. His men call him the Scarlet Soldier, can you imagine? One would think such a man would have the mettle we need. I'm expecting a promotion soon that will get me in the door to more of the planning data so I can understand why people like Da'nashay have to die."

"What?" Iselsi Navia asked, feeling a surge inside her. "Did you say...he's the Scarlet Soldier?" Lightning rose inside of her, not true electricity but the sensation of something immensely important.

"I know. I hear his mother even tolerates it. Imagine. The Scarlet Empress allowing a portion of her name to be used. I suppose it's because his men named him and he didn't seek it himself."

"'You will know him by his blood and his name," Navia whispered. A thousand years she'd waited, more than that, and now here he was. "'The Pivot Child is to be born from the Dragons and he will be near enough'...yes, blood of the Scarlet Empress. 'He will be named for his mother, yet not by his mother', also true. 'He will be chaste, pure, and your eyes...your eyes will reveal him to you.' And they do...he has my eyes."

"Navia?" The Chosen of Serenity looked alarm, when she finally glanced at him. "What was that? That sounded like Prophecy."

"It is, in a way," Navia replied. "Something secret." Had she said that out loud? How could she have made such a lapse?

"The Pivot Child? I know that name..." Ragara Yelaren frowned in concentration and Navia's stomach sank. It was bad fortune, to say the least, that on the eve of finding the father, that the forgotten prophecy should be on someone's mind now. And it was her fault, after having been warned by herself no more than a dozen hours ago. Clumsy.

"It refers to an obscure and obsolete Hinge Prophecy, Yelaren," Navia said softly. "One that cannot come to pass, as it depends on another, more impossible prophecy. The Fulcrum Hammer."

"Oh, right. Well, isn't that quite the coincidence?" Ragara Yelaren laughed, sounding a little forced. "One of the components of a Hinge Prophecy, and you noticing it like that. Ivy Manse kind of thing, I suppose. Well, I suppose it wouldn't have been a Prophecy if it didn't point to something real, true?"

"Who's to say?" Navia said, staring off into the crowd after Da'nashay. "Please excuse me, Yelaren," Navia said quickly, pressing her hands over her stomach. "I'm not feeling well." True, for she was somewhat in a state of shock. "Please, give my compliments to Iriszy, I have to go."


	4. Chapter 4

**The 12th Day of Resplendent Wood, 602 in the Year of Our Empress**

Navia dwelled in the next few hours. For a Sidereal, able to see the ebb and flow of Fate, tampering with one's subjective perception of time was a simple trick and one she exploited without shame. She knew the gossip of Heaven, had read in the records of her Department the name her Fellowship had once labeled her. If they saw her now, they would not think her the Ice Queen any longer.

They lay together, blankets strewn haphazardly across their cooling bodies and the bed. The pale creamy silks of the bed were coarse and ordinary to one accustomed to Heaven's luxuries but the muscular, flawless body she lay against had no peer. Navia, who had never been with a man as an adult, who had not known the touch of a kind lover ever in any of her thousand years of life, nestled against Da'nashay and was content.

An hour in his arms had passed like a hundred and she had enjoyed every moment of it, in her own way. He was new to this, having always been chaste. It had helped her to feel safe and his inexperience had concealed from him her own limitations. Lost in his own pleasure, he never noticed her lack. She was relieved. Since her father had touched her as a child, she had never experienced the smallest amount of desire in the whole of her life. But the closeness, this closeness with this kind and plain-spoken man...yes, that made her happy.

"I've never met anyone like you," the captain said quietly, his breath like a whisper of wind across her shoulder.

"There are a few but not many," Navia said, her thoughts on the burning blue prayer strip that lay around the bone of her left ring finger. Da'nashay had one just like it, even though he didn't know it.

The Wanting and Fearing was a favorite Charm she'd used in the past like a scalpel, decisively forging new relationships and feelings where they solved matters, sealing up possible breaches of paradox with needed resolution. She was considered a master of the art, applauded even by the Chosen of Serenity, and she secretly delighted in her ability to solve problems by creating love.

This was the first and only time in her life she had ever used it upon herself. Other Charms could have brought him to her but this one was sure. She would not have dared to do so at all, if he hadn't been slated to die. It would require some careful manipulation of paperwork but Heaven and Fate would hardly notice if a man fell in love hours before his death.

"Will I see you again?" Da'nashay asked. He was so young compared to the eras she'd lived through but he had a man's demeanor and a man's courage. His voice didn't waver in the slightest, despite the pressure from the love that burned in his heart. She knew the strength it must take to ask such a question for she felt the same love inside her own chest.

"I imagine so," Navia answered, after a long silence stretched between them. "One way or another. Would you like that?"

"You seem a woman who appreciates honesty, directness without guile. Let me be frank with you." When she moved her head to look at him, his beautiful green eyes came into view, moving about as if to soak up her every detail to treasure and cherish. It was a surprisingly nice feeling.

"Please. I do not scare." Navia smiled a little at him, listening to the thrum of his heart beneath her ear.

"I would like to marry you."

"Marry an open Iselsi?" She smirked at him gently. "My, my, what would your mother say?"

"It's not as if we're close," Da'nashay chuckled. She liked how the vibration tickled her cheek.

"You realize you would doom all chances of establishing your own House someday, Da'nashay." Navia watched for his reaction. She wondered why it felt so important to her but she was most wise in the Wanting and Fearing Prayer and she rode its direction to see where it would take her.

"I never intended to start one, Navia," he said without hesitation. It was the honest truth. "I never intended to marry either." Also true. "The Legions are my life. You are the very first reason I have for looking outside the ranks. Since we're being honest, I'll confess something else to you. I don't want to marry you because you'd be politically advantageous, though you're not. Nor because you would make a powerful wife, though you would. I want you to be my wife because I love you. Does that frighten you?" It would a true Dynast, for his words were nonsense in their world.

"Seeing this night end frightens me," Iselsi Navia answered, plainly truthful for once as his candor deserved. "Nothing you've said frightens me."

It was at that moment, when nothing else particularly important was happening, that the Pivot Child conceived.

Navia's whole life changed. She felt the subtle possibility of a daughter transform into the absolute certainty of it. She closed her eyes, felt across her own thread with her Auspicious Prospects of Serenity Charm, and a tear fell from her eye when she saw the green of her life shot through with white now, the beginnings of a thread that would separate and become its own some day. It would belong to her daughter.

"Navia...what's wrong?" Da'nashay's rugged face, full of so much character for a young Dragon-Blooded, was concerned.

"I love you too." The admission distracted him from a truth he couldn't know or understand. For the first time, Iselsi Navia felt the sting of resentment, that she couldn't share her whole life with this man. This was why Sidereal did not fall in love. This was why she never had. This would be why she would never do so again. Even if she could tell him the truth, even if he understood it, he would be dead before it did either of them any good.

"Then marry me?"

"I'll marry you," Navia said. The only reason it was possible was because he would not live to follow through with the ceremony. A marriage to him would be awkward, tricky to arrange, after all. Not 'even with' her Bronze Faction credentials but because of them. If Da'nashay had not been scheduled to die, Ragara Yelaren would undoubtedly have plans for his lineage. It would be politically difficult for the head of the All-Seeing Eye's to marry an ill-considered scion of the Scarlet Empress. It would be even harder to get the approval of the Bronze Faction's planning division, though she did boast a very impressive heritage of Breeding thanks to Father.

If only she could marry him, though. A small love for herself. The Pivot Child Prophecy had been the secret goal driving her for ten centuries to master herself, becoming the only Sidereal of her age to manage a Fellowship in the Capital Convention. She had done inestimable service to the Bronze Faction and to its leader, Chejob Kejak, as dedicated to the cause as he was.

But it was impossible. It would completely disrupt decades of planning data. Her tampering would go on record if she used anything stronger than the most subtle Charms. And she couldn't afford to expose the Child before her time.

Navia sighed against Da'nashay's side as she heard the smallest settling of a glass window against its frame. Was this the beginning of his death, what Fate had measured out against him? The night was moonless, thanks to the Lunar Eclipse, the second exactly as she'd warned herself. A strange omen to signal the conception of the Pivot Child. Perhaps, instead, it signaled the death of the Child's father.

Her memory pricked her, as the intruder carefully crept inside in the other room. Her future self had said she would likely never see the father again. True, if he was going to die. But that's not how she'd said it. "You and I will know very little comfort for a great while, Navia. When all else fails, he may offer some." That was in the present tense!

Looking at the now-dozing Dragon-Blooded in wonder, Navia once again knew with Auspicious Prospects of Endings that he was meant to die. But, for the first time, she looked upon him with the Auspicious Prospects of Secrets...and saw that he was vitally important to the Pivot Child Prophecy still.

Was that what her future self had meant? Had she taken the same risk Navia was contemplating now? Was there any other choice?

No. Nothing could stand between her and the Prophecy of the Pivot Child coming to fruition. Not even decades of planning data, the Department of Serenity...or her best friend, Yelaren himself.

Doing this would have to be conducted with the utmost discretion. No Charms involving Prayer Strips, preferably no Charms at all. No Astrological work. Few, if any, use of her allies and connections in Heaven.

With those limitations, how could she accomplish it?

But her mental reasoning was interrupted before she had an answer. For at that time, a man stepped from the shadows. Two wicked moonsilver knives trailed in his hands and his face was furious. And Navia wondered if it was already too late.


	5. Chapter 5

**The 12th Day of Resplendent Wood, 602 in the Year of Our Empress**

"Da'nashay!" Iselsi Navia spoke sharply. If she could have kept him asleep, it would have been best but she lacked an appropriate Charm and had none of her tools here for such a purpose. She was ill-prepared, having arrived in a party dress.

"I'll handle this, Navia," Da'nashay growled, seeing the intruder and snatching up his Daiklave from the side of the bed at once. Navia took advantage of Da'nashay's advance on the assassin to catch up a white robe sewn with scarlet embroidery. One of the rarely known privileges afforded to the wardrobe of a visiting son of the Scarlet Empress was such raiment. She rose, drew it up on herself and tied it off for modesty and battle readiness as Da'nashay pointed the great jade sword at the advancing killer, halting him just shy of its point.

"You really think a little sword's going to stop me?" the assassin growled, a threatening low rumble like a wolf. It raised the hair on her neck and she looked carefully. ...there, yes, his eyes. They had just a hint of yellow, just a slight oddity to the pupil but telling in a literal way. The man had a Tell. Which meant, no matter how improbable it was on the Blessed Isle, that this killer was a Lunar.

Da'nashay was outmatched and he didn't even know it.

"Does my sister really think an assassin's going to stop me?" Da'nashay answered back, growling in a more human way. "She just doesn't get it. Stupid girl."

"This has nothing to do with a girl. Your troops annihilated part of my shipping operations. You killed my men. MY men. It took me weeks but I managed to track down every shred of evidence so there's no use lying about it, snake-blood. I don't know why but I don't care either." The Lunar spit. "Then, it was just a matter of waiting for a time when you'd be vulnerable. How nice of you to show up at your sister's party and leave yourself a fine, bloody target. No one steps on my territory without paying for it, snake-blood. Time to bleed."

Navia hurried forward and lifted a hand, as if to stop the first seconds of the fight. If only she could, just like that. Avoiding a confrontation was easy for a Sidereal. Helping someone else avoid it was not so much. Battle's End would accomplish it, but at the price of exposing what she was. Celestial Sorcery was, after all, quite beyond the Dragon Blooded.

Da'nashay fell back defensively as the Lunar exploded into motion, his moonsilver knives flashing in the dark bedroom as they sparked off red jade. The Captain fought splendidly, doing credit to whichever Sidereal had trained him, but his experience and Exaltation were no match for his opponent. In seconds he would be dead and the Fate the Bronze Faction had planned would be fulfilled.

Navia Forced him to make another Decision, though, instead pulling his blade and backing away because of the chance that Da'nashay was innocent. It was the largest change in someone else's Destiny that she dared make if she wanted to avoid any risk of an audit. However justified she was, she knew her Faction would not favor her agenda over theirs. The Lunar shook his head and then glared at her, pointing the knife threateningly.

"I know that trick. You think I don't know that trick? But you don't have purple eyes, little girl. Must mean there's more than one breed of you. Too bad. I warned Lingering Whisper to tell the rest of you to leave me alone. Now, run like the cowards you are before I gut you too."

Iselsi Navia blinked as comprehension came, even as she winced from the Paradox she'd likely incurred. So this was the infamous Elated Fury. No wonder he'd come by surprise. The Sidereal had gotten too used to the easiness moonsilver tattoos gave in magical detection. Now, he'd seen through a Resplendent Destiny to the Sidereal that lay beneath. The Pattern Spiders would not appreciate the extra work that made.

Was there a way to resolve this without violence? Not really.

The subtle methods she had perfected would not work against an enraged Lunar who was wise to them. She couldn't retreat without Da'nashay. And, given the Lunar's reputed skill, it was unlikely that she would be able to best him without resorting to Martial Art techniques impossible for any Dragon-Blooded. Auspicious Prospects of Endings still confirmed that Da'nashay would die this night without her direct intervention, which left her little recourse.

Navia felt the just-formed life within her, looked upon the man who had made Yezenjen possible, and took a risk. Where fate-manipulation and astrology always left a record...Martial Arts did not. What Da'nashay did not witness, he could not report.

For a split second, Navia ceased to exist.

And then, she existed. In all things, in all places, in all ways, in all colors, she came together and stepped back into Creation. Her Exaltation was charged with its connection to the construct of the Tapestry and all things were laid out for her to see in exact detail.

Navia shed the Iselsi she had been up until now, stepped out of her Resplendent Destinies and simultaneously invoked the Four Magical Materials Form, Soul Fire Shaper Form and her Demesne and Manse Form through her Prismatic Arrangement of Creation.

Even as Elated Fury swung an arm up for another attack on the Dragon-Blooded, Iselsi Navia struck from where she was standing, the bright green of her Anima shining like a forest of leaves. Leaving contrails of Essence, her body and arms flickered like moonsilver, her starmetal and jade-shod hands flashing as she struck with lightning precision.

Da'nashay fell backwards across the bed, quite thoroughly unconscious, having no clue who his attacker had been or that his lover twenty feet away had done it.

"You've...got to be joking," Elated Fury said, hesitating. For a savage Lunar, the man was surprisingly composed given how angry he seemed to be. "Did I just see you knock the Dragon-Blooded out? Weren't you two...involved?"

"Correct. But you're mistaken if you think I'm done."

Navia blurred into rainbow light as she attacked. Elated Fury was considerably better than poor Da'nashay had been, much better than half the Lunar his age likely were. She certainly hoped that was the case, else even Kejak would not be able to halt the advance of a Lunar like Ma-Ha-Suchi.

His moonsilver knives flowed like liquid, twisting to get through her defenses, twisting to keep her from getting through theirs. But against hands that emulated Starmetal, the weapons were only as dangerous as the skill of their wielder. He was good but not enough to prevail.

Elated Fury leapt back for maneuvering room. Iselsi Navia leapt with him, slashing at him with her fingertips seven deadly times. He stopped the first two, barely turned aside the third, ducked the forth, jerked to the side to avoid the fifth, and howled when the sixth and seventh caught him across his exposed side.

"How the hell did you just do that?" he exclaimed, landing and springing back on his feet. For such a well-muscled man, he was as light as a feather. A shame the Lunar mindset was set so staunchly against the enlightened perspectives required for Martial Arts Mastery. This Elated Fury's body was perfect but his soul was not. That would be what broke him.

"You see why I wished Da'nashay unconscious," Iselsi Navia said solemnly. "I've read the reports on you, Elated Fury." She spun to avoid a knife, caught his follow-up kick and dislocated his knee with a well-placed elbow strike. "You fight very well. I can see why Lingering Whisper had such difficulty against you." Elated Fury lunged and she snapped a kick into his face, hitting him with the full force of the Four Magic Material Style. The Lunar broke the table set against the wall when he landed on it. Come to think of it, the wall didn't look too good now either.

"Not bad, Star Girl," he grunted, scrambling from the wreckage. "But I'm not backing down, not for you or anyone. I've blood to repay." Elated Fury wiped a string of blood from his face. Was he healing already? How remarkable. Ordinarily, Lunar didn't do so quite so quickly unless in their battle form. Was this a Charm she hadn't heard of?

"You've been lied to, Elated Fury," Navia said. He charged her. She spun backward, her heel striking him in the jaw. She completed her backflip and regained her feet even as Elated Fury cracked the wall with his impact. "Your passion has been used against you. You've been manipulated, Lunar. Da'nashay is correct about this. This is his sister's doing. Iriszy has set you up to kill a rival of hers, placing the blame of his murder squarely upon you and leaving her hands free. You've been played, my friend."

"The hell you say!" he cried, jumping back up.

With the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Form, Navia remained a part of Creation's whole Essence pattern while perceiving it as well. So she was not surprised when she noticed that Iriszy was climbing the stairs to this wing of the Imperial Palace. What was surprising was that Ragara Yelaren was with her. They would be here in minutes.

Navia frowned in thought, her mind racing to work through the possibilities. There was no way she had the time to conceal her actions and presence here on this short a notice. Iriszy could be redirected but Yelaren was trained as she was and he would not be fooled by any deception. With the two together, Navia's path was further tangled...or perhaps it was smoothed.

She grimaced at the thought while she caught Elated Fury trying to dislocate her shoulder with a Charm. Soul Shaper Fire gave her the means to Charm Redirect and he howled as his own shoulder gave way beneath his strength. Navia allowed the Lunar to back off and throw himself against the wall to pop it back into place. It gave her a few extra seconds to consider alternatives, even as her time was running out.

At last, Navia used Wise Choice. There was only one way to resolve the converging paths of Fate here. Only one way that would allow Da'nashay to survive and her own complicity to be unknown. It might even provide the key to guarantee Yezenjen's Celestial Exaltation. And, to begin with, it required her to knock the Lunar out.

"For what it's worth, Elated Fury, you're a competent fighter," Navia said. "I don't like Anathema, mind you, and I'd just as soon put you down like the dog you are but I have a far more useful plan for you. When you wake up, I trust you'll play your part. I'm going to be giving you what you want, the way I want you to have it."

"Huh?"

Navia only beckoned him on. This Lunar was a cunning fighter, even now refusing to give in to her baiting. So she took the matter out of his hands.

Rainbow and sunlight streamed from her body as she executed the Thousand-Fold Descending Destruction Technique, her own customized combination of three Supernatural Martial Art skills fueled by her mastery of the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style. Her fist knocked his head back, a knee slammed the breath from his lungs, and then she struck him 11 times against his ribs, 7 to his stomach, 5 to the back, 3 to the throat and exactly 1 time to the head, in a perfectly indivisible way. Only then did the demolished body of her opponent touch the ground, beaten into sleeping helplessness.

Navia frowned as she rubbed her knuckles. Hitting him had felt like punching steel. Still, it was well she had employed the Jade Method or he would not have survived the Thousand-Fold Descending Devastation Technique. Instead, Elated Fury would sleep long enough.

Was he still healing? Yes, good. She could put her plan into practice.

Navia felt them coming toward the door, the angry Sidereal and the frustrated Dragon-Blooded Dynast. Why had Yelaren come with her? If only they had come separately, there might have been hope. But now...no, there was no other way. Navia clenched the twisting rope of sorrow in her stomach. She had no time for weakness.

Her Anima shone more brightly as she utilized the God Ways Charm. She dematerialized...and then she stepped squarely into Elated Fury's body. If he were conscious, his will was probably more than sufficient to expel her. But he would not wake until well after...what was to come.

She had just enough time to straighten her body's leather jerkin when Ragara Yelaren threw the doors open.

Her own student, Iriszy, followed on his heels. The obviously pregnant Dynast looked irritated that her pace hadn't been enough to keep a lead over her companion. For appearances, Navia grinned in her best roguish manner and flipped them both off.

"You haven't killed him yet, Elated Fury?" Yelaren looked mildly surprised but she knew it was a lie. He could see the Sidereal behind the Lunar, even as she could see the truth behind his masquerade. There was no reason for Yelaren to have gone with Iriszy on a private Dynastic matter, if he hadn't known something was wrong.

They were the only two Sidereal in the Imperial Palace tonight. No one else knew what had transpired here and no one else would. That was what mattered.

"Do we really need the pretense?" Navia inquired, not bothering to pretend to the jaunty air of the Casteless Lunar. Her heart wasn't in to it and it wouldn't matter what Iriszy saw anyway.

"'You will know him by his blood and his name'," her old friend quoted, answering her. The sapphire-eyed Sidereal glared, popped his knuckles, and closed the door behind him. It clicked as it shut and Navia knew it would not open again before matters were finished. That was one relief. There would be no other witnesses. "That's not in any book of Prophecy I know of. You're acting on your own, aren't you?"

"I didn't mean that pretense, my old friend," Navia said, forcing a slight laugh. "Think of your company." Navia gestured to Iriszy who opened her mouth, only to be silenced by an imperious gesture from Ragara Yelaren. The daughter of the Scarlet Empress looked outraged...until the Sidereal dropped his Resplendent Destiny right in front of her.

"Navia... Navia...have you lost your mind?" the Sidereal asked. His exposure of her, and of himself, was surprising. She hadn't expected it. What else might happen that she didn't expect? This did not bode well.

"I am only doing what I must," Iselsi Navia replied calmly, taking a step forward and stretching. Almost healed now, she thought with satisfaction. "As are you, Yelaren. We've both incurred Paradox tonight because we both know how this conversation is going to end, don't we? It is unlikely either of us will be able to conceal our Animas after we're through."

"What you must..." he repeated dumbly, apparently hung up on her first words. "Navia, you've just ruined a year of planning, did you know that? Da'nashay is not supposed to survive the night. What were you thinking, upsetting our tables like that? You're interfering with planning data!" He almost gasped at the audacity of it. In other circumstances, it might have seemed like melodrama but Navia was fully aware of how grave her actions already were. Were she Gold Faction, she would be punished. But for one of the Bronze to do this to their own Convention...

"I am acting in accordance with more important data," Navia said. "I will not explain myself, old friend. You've never liked mysteries. I appreciate your feelings but this one must endure. I cannot allow Da'nashay to die."

"Who are you people?" Iriszy asked, the small Dragon-Blooded looking positively bewildered. She was intelligent enough to reason out why Yelaren was calling the form of Elated Fury by her name but she lacked the context to understand it. They both utterly ignored her, knowing they needed all their concentration for each other.

"Because of some impossible Prophecy? The Pivot Child is a dead end, Navia," Yelaren demanded. "It can't come true. I cannot fathom why you think it can. But the rest of what you said, that's not in the Hinge Prophecies anywhere. 'He will be named for his mother, yet not by his mother'? Nowhere is that written."

"No, it's not written. It was told to me by one of unimpeachable motive." Navia fought at the tears that crept into her eyes. This was not the way she wanted things to turn out but, again, the constraints of time and secrecy would force a path she had to walk.

"You're wrong." Yelaren's gaze was steady, composed, certain. There was no doubt in him, just as there was none in her. "And you're..." The Chosen of Serenity's eyes opened wide. "You're with child. Not even an hour old. By the Maidens, what...are you trying to fulfill the Pivot Child Prophecy yourself? What's happened to you, Navia? I thought I knew you."

"Navia slept with my brother?" Iriszy shouted furiously. She really had an amazing mind. Although she was ignorant of the mechanics, she had corrected intuited Navia's presence here and the source of her unborn daughter's conception from words and wits alone. Navia was proud and she grieved for that.

"You do know me," Navia said, giving her oldest friend a small, steely smile. "You know me in greater detail than any other living being. Nonetheless, I work toward a purpose you would not believe in even if it were explained to you. Come, Yelaren, we both feel the inevitability of our positions."

"The Pivot Child cannot occur," Yelaren pleaded, as if urging her to come back to his point of view. If only he understood that she had never shared it to begin with. "Your own Department has coordinated with mine, with all Departments, to plan the future. We have a map laid out, a map you've defended, made possible, even helped plan now. Will you really abandon the whole work of the Bureau of Fate...for this?"

"Yes," Navia said. No hesitation, no doubt or reserve. "She will save the world, Yelaren. But she cannot if I do not follow the path I know I must."

"Your path is impossible. Even less possible than the Gold Path was." Yelaren shook his head. "I was born the night the Solar Deliberative fell, when my predecessor did not survive the banquet he threw for the Zenith. They were tyrants, Navia, and the monsters caused centuries of damage...yet even their reformation was more likely than this Child of yours."

"You're...Anathema..." Iriszy gasped. "Somehow, I always thought you two might be...but...what are you?"

"In a minute, student," Navia said sternly to her, turning back to Yelaren at once. "Do you believe Fate tells you this?" she asked archly.

"Yes," Yelaren replied instantly. "I cannot see a future in which the child you carry right now will save the world or bring about world peace. Your vision is wrong. Look with my eyes and tell me I'm wrong, if you can."

And Navia did, searching across the Path of the Pivot Child. As it had for a thousand years, it still burned brightly in her mind, leading inevitably to a future of surpassing glory. Yelaren...was wrong. He really was. How could his Auspicious Prospects tell him something that hers did not? Or vice versa?

He was lying. There could be no other reason. Fate did not lie. But a Sidereal would, if it meant preserving the ideologically pure vision of the future they had dedicated their life to. She had and would again and she could not fault Yelaren for doing what she would.

"You are wrong, Yelaren." Navia sighed. "Why forestall the inevitable any longer? Surely you must see that it will only complicate things further, no matter who wins."

"Good point, 'old friend'," Yelaren growled. "Shall we? I'll make my stipulation. One Style only."

Navia nodded, amused and impressed by his choice. When two Sidereal dueled, tactics quickly moved beyond the experience of even most Exalts. By limiting them both to one Style, it would go to demonstrate which was superior or which Sidereal was better at utilizing their stylistic principles. It would also favor Yelaren, for he was almost a master in the Charcoal March of Spiders and it was deadly in a most wicked way.

On the other hand, and what Yelaren was regrettably not considering, was that Navia's chosen style gave her amazing defensive power. It was true that, with the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation only, she would not have any directly useful attack Charms beyond the common enhancements of the Four Magical Material Form. On the other hand, it meant she could hoard the Essence she had left and rely on sheer inhuman skill to win.

Yelaren could kill her in a single strike if she was not careful. But, Navia felt after considering their match, the matter favored her. Though old friends, Yelaren and indeed no one knew just how dedicated Navia had been in the last millennia.

"Then I will make mine. No Suturas." Navia bowed Elated Fury's head slightly at Yelaren's wary skepticism. "It is my stipulation to make, my friend."

The Chosen of Serenity was just shy of mastery of the Charcoal March of Spiders, which meant he only had access to the Student Sutra. Navia, on the other hand, had completed her mastery of the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation more than a century ago and could use the Master Sutra. Her stipulation hindered her more than it hindered him, or so it would seem if her goal was simply victory and not secrecy as well.

"Please stay in place, Iriszy," Yelaren said in a calm voice. "Neither of us can permit you to leave until this matter is settled."

Navia and Yelaren faced each other, their mutual skill at Destiny vying against the other. There was a reason Sidereal never fought each other seriously. Much of the tactical advantage an individual Agent of Fate wielded was mitigated when your enemy could do the same tricks you did, knew the same things you knew.

They both brought up their Defense of Shining Joy. Navia politely waited for Yelaren to execute the three necessary katas to bring about his Charcoal March of Spiders Form and whatever other Charms he felt he needed. But the outcome, when at last the two were ready, was never in question.

Yelaren struck with the sudden rising speed of the spider, lunging in a fashion both grotesque and surreally quick. Navia, well accustomed to this technique, evaded the blow with the grace of Moonsilver and Joy. Next, he chose to attack her six times in rapid succession, with kicks and punches that would have killed a mortal. Each one failed to find its mark as Navia flowed from every potential touch, twice being forced to turn his strike away when the Shining Joy failed her. But if Yelaren seemed to be in many places at once with his Form, Navia truly was and the contest of their skill was a thing of legend.

The Chosen of Serenity simply smiled at her, and he struck six more times, doubtlessly hoping to wear her down with his sheer speed. Navia spun, twirled, deflected, and leaped backward as each blow failed to find its mark. Her feet caught purchase on the floorboard of the bed and she sprang from it, twisting into a spiral that struck the other Sidereal twice across the face.

Yelaren staggered back, hand reaching to touch his cheek. Navia balanced in a fighter's pose, graceful and elegant even in this foreign body. Elated Fury was in excellent condition and her God Ways allowed her a flexibility to fight with her full speed.

She held up her index finger and turned it one way, then another. Spots of blood lay across each side. Sure enough, Yelaren's brow darkened as he realized she'd cut him lightly across each cheek. It was a humbling display of skill and one his pride would not abide.

On came the Water Spider Bite, the hissing Charm coiling across his glowing blue palm as it sped to stab deeply into her Anima. Navia saw it coming...and caught his hand at the wrist with both palms. He pushed but she would not give ground. Yelaren sighed as the powerful Charm faded away, its power unused, and then he struck her a great blow across the head.

Navia allowed the blow to land for she had studied her adversary since before the founding of the Scarlet Dynasty. It might have killed a mortal but it was hasty and made in anger and it barely dimpled the oriacalcum-sheathing of her Anima. Navia straightened and nodded toward her friend.

"You didn't Charm Redirect," Yelaren observed politely. He was glowing brightly now, just as she was.

"No," she answered, just as polite.

His limbs jerked like a spider rearing to strike and then he was upon her. Yelaren fought like an army of arachnids, tireless and infinite in his skill. Navia met each attack by choosing to be somewhere else, at times using her hands or feet to convince his fist or boot that they would find no target here.

She knew what he wanted and she gave it to him. Navia fought through an army of blows, only to deliver a mighty blow directly toward his chest. The Sidereal grinned in victory and the yawning void of the Cannibalistic Heritage Technique opened to consume her. He knew she had taken his bait, just as she knew he knew. Each was confident in their impeccable power.

The void gnawed at her Anima, fighting to bite through to consume the Sidereal beneath, but the green light about her was emulating oricalcum and the void could not breech it. In fury, Yelaren lashed out at her through the dissipating vortex of hostile Essence and every one of his blows was solid and sure. Navia stopped the first four...but the fifth rocked her back on her heels.

She wiped Elated Fury's blood from her mouth...and then she came back upon him like silver, gold and gray and each of her fingernails flashed with a color of Jade as her fist impacted his chest. Yelaren was knocked from his feet and only the impossible agility of the Charcoal March of Spiders was enough to keep him from going through the door. Instead, he landed on the door's surface, just like a spider.

"One chance left," Navia observed. "Have you decided my fate?"

"Yes."

And then the blue light fell to embrace her. Yelaren came in a dozen directions, each meant to mislead and beguile. Navia ignored the phantom blows, and shrugged off the real ones, for there was only one she was worried about.

With her oneness with the world, Navia felt the Pattern Spider Touch come. The whispery yellow shades of nihilistic surrender urged her to give in as his hand crept closer and closer. With a single touch, Yelaren intended to remake her into a new Sidereal, one without the burden of the Pivot Child Prophecy or the grief of a 1,000 years of hard decisions. It was not a defeat but a promise. It was the Chosen of Serenity's philosophy in a Charm and it would remove all her unhappiness if she let it.

She did not.

The Patter Spider Touch missed her. It missed because Navia met his attack, coiled around it with all the sinuous grace of the moon, and then her starmetal-shod hands were inside his defenses. Her friend had used the last of his strength to try ending her and he had failed. There was truly only one outcome to this fight.

Navia's fist left trails of Essence in the air where her oricalcum-sheathed Anima rippled the geomantric patterns of reality. Yelaren saw the attack coming. She saw his counter. In a fraction of time, they both saw the rest of the battle unfold, ending minutes later in Yelaren's defeat. Every door to his triumph had closed with the failing of his Pattern Spider Touch. Weary acceptance crossed her friend's face and Navia felt like crying at seeing it.

Elated Fury's powerful fingers, hard as Starmetal, were not opposed. Navia's hand slammed into his chest, broke through his ribs, caught his heart, and tore it out with a single twist.

Much as the victim of the Jumping Spider Strike had only moments to live before the inevitability of his death caught up to him, Yelaren had seconds to appreciate the irony of someone emulating its method against a near-master of that Style. He gave her a look of surprise. He really thought she wouldn't finish the fight, that the prohibition between Sidereals killing each other would stay her hand.

Navia caressed Yelaren's face and told him she loved him. In his eyes, Navia saw forgiveness and absolution, the last gift he could give a friend. Navia leaned close to him and whispered a secret she would not let the world know.

"The Loom of Fate itself showed me the rise of the Pivot Child, my old friend. May your soul find its peace in knowing that your Exaltation...most surely will rise again...within her for she is conceived the very night you die."

Yelaren nodded once and then the blue of his Anima faded away to ash in her arms. Though he had fought her in his unbelief, Navia privately hoped that her best friend would be honored to be reborn in a girl destined to bring peace to the world. It was the best reward a dedicated servant of Serenity could hope for.

Navia wept four tears for her fallen companion, and two more for herself at having done the deed. Her own heart ached in her chest and she felt very alone. How many times had she saved Yelaren's life during the time of their Fellowship? She had fought to protect him, only to turn out to be his murderer.

"Do not," Navia said cuttingly, over the rough edge of Elated Fury's voice darkened further by still-unshed tears.

Iriszy hesitated at the door, then dived at the door handles. The daughter of the Scarlet Empress was far from stupid. Though she didn't understand why it had happened, she knew she had witnessed something she shouldn't have. She might have made it if she hadn't been burdened by a pregnancy two weeks away from completion.

Navia flipped backwards from her seat on the floor, where she had lowered her murdered friend down. Soaring, the world spinning around and around, Navia closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation. It was a brief moment of distraction from what was left to do.

Then she landed on the door handles, almost breaking the Dynast's fingers.

"You're a fool if you think you can get away with this," Iriszy hissed. "I cannot fathom... how you can be Navia but obviously my Sifu has lost her mind. Navia, teacher, Sifu, listen to me!" Desperation passed across the girl's face. Yes, she understood.

"I'm listening, Iriszy."

"You don't have to do this. I won't say anything. I honestly will never speak of this again. I know when I'm in over my head. I...never knew, about either of you, but you know what kind of woman I am. I keep my word when it's important. You trained me, Sifu...trust in the work of your hands to keep your secrets. I'll tell everyone Elated Fury did it. It's true, after a fashion!"

Iriszy's voice was gracious and humble. It was foreign, for Navia had never known her Dragon-Blooded student to mask her arrogant pride or her diamond-like determination to become a power in the world. She admired the spirit it represented. Yes, Iriszy had learned much from her hands. Even how to bend against the irresistible.

If only she could change the girl's Destiny. Or change Da'nashay's. But tampering with either of them would go on record. It would stand out like a sore thumb because her reputation for her unwavering commitment to the Bronze was well-known and keeping them from each other contravened the direct plans of the Department of Serenity. Questions would be asked and the timing of her pregnancy noticed. She already had one outstanding use on record now, the Wanting and Fearing, and it would be all she could do to explain that. She knew how to but anything more would threaten the integrity of that story.

"You've come very far, Iriszy," Navia conceded. "As well as Iselsi did in her time. Oh yes, I trained her too," she said, smiling slightly at the wonderment in her student's eyes. "Destiny is a delicate thing, complicated no matter the skill used to understand it. If I had had more time, I could have prevented this catastrophe from happening but I did not. There is only one conclusion to this conversation now."

"Navia, please..." Tears came to the young Dragon-Blooded's eyes. "If not for me...for... my son. Please."

Navia's heart broke to see such suffering and to know that she was the cause of it. The pain stabbed her through and she might have fallen from her perch, if not for centuries of discipline, sacrifice and commitment. Despite her dislike of Iriszy, she loved the girl like a daughter, saw her unborn child as a grandchild to nurture and protect, just as she had sheltered House Iselsi after it's founder, her best student, had died.

"I've always cared for you, Iriszy," Navia said, allowing her tears to fall freely now, to show her student how much she mattered. "But I cannot let harm come to Da'nashay. I cannot allow any trace of my presence to be found here. I cannot do both. You and he are set to be foils to each other and I know you, Iriszy, this is one passion you will never set aside. I could set it aside for you but it would show my hand and I cannot take that risk either. I am trapped and there is only one way through."

"So...what, you're going to silence me? Murder me like you murdered Yelaren?" The steel was back in Iriszy's voice. In that moment, the child of the Scarlet Empress looked every inch her worthy successor. "You can't get away with this. We have investigators, you know. I'm sure...whatever you are, that those like you do too. You'll be caught! Even if you got away, you don't think people will wonder how this happened? Someone will pick it apart, Navia, someone will tease out the truth until your treachery is unmasked."

"Correct," Navia said, smiling encouragingly through her tears. "But for two things. The first...I myself will lead the investigation into this, as is my right. I am a Chosen of Secrets, eminently qualified to handle such matters, and I have the right as the only other Sidereal in the Imperial Manse tonight."

Iriszy shook her head in denial.

"The second...you yourself have provided me with the perfect tool. Elated Fury."

"Wh-what?" Iriszy stuttered, her eyes flicking over the body she still wore. In the recesses of his mind, the Lunar stirred. He would wake soon. Every moment of this evening seemed cursed with inauspicious haste.

"You sent him to kill Da'nashay, my poor student. Clearly, he discovered the truth, that you killed his men, that you engineered the plot to lure him here as a weapon." The guilt and awareness in the Dragon-Blooded's eyes made Navia nod with her student's internal realizations of how perfectly this scene could be manipulated. "It even has the benefit of being true. So, he will have struck you down with his claws. Poor Yelaren, warden of a Bronze Faction project, realized you were in distress and came to assist...only to die as well. My friend was cunning but not invulnerable and he would not be the first Sidereal to fail against this particular Lunar."

"Elated Fury will escape, very neatly framed, and you'll never have been here," Iriszy said, with grim pride at understanding her teacher's plot to kill her. "I assume you knocked Da'nashay out? Yes, I thought so, from the way he's lying across the bed. He didn't see a thing, then, and he'll be proved completely innocent I'm sure. It really is perfect. I would never have believed you capable of it."

Navia met her eyes with the weight of her centuries and nodded slowly.

"Your mother already learned this lesson, Iriszy. When it comes to the fate of all that is important, no sacrifice is too great. Even one you must make of yourself, of your friends, of those you love."

"Can you promise me one thing?" Iriszy asked. An eerie expression of peace came over her, the recognition of the condemned simply waiting for the inevitable axe to fall. "My son...he's almost born. Take him from my body...after you've done what you're going to do. Promise me he'll be...taken care of."

"I will, Iriszy," Navia said, clasping her hand over her student's shoulder, squeezing tightly. "Even if you never knew it, I've loved and cared for you since you were a baby yourself. Your son will live."

"Thank you," Iriszy said in a choked voice, bending her head and squeezing her eyes shut tightly against the impending horror of death. Navia kissed her once on the brow. Somewhere inside of the Sidereal, a tattered memory of the young girl she'd once been screamed at her that this was wrong.

Terrible as it was to kill her best friend, some could call it self-defense. There was no way to spin or alter what murdering Iriszy would be. The Dragon-Blooded was helpless before her, didn't want to fight her or oppose her, and it was only because of the prowess of Navia's own Bureau that she couldn't permit a single witness. If she did this, Navia knew she could never recover the innocence she'd lost.

But she did what she had to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**The 1st Day of Ascendant Fire, 750 in the Year of Our Empress**

"So there you are, you old crone."

Iselsi Navia didn't look back toward the speaker for two reasons. The first was that she stood in a most magnificent park, part of the extended grounds behind the Cerulean Lute of Harmony. The view was spectacular as the park gently rolled with hills, trees, grass and flowers, ending just before a quicksilver canal. The water gleamed in the light of the Unconquered Sun and Yu-Shan beyond was a marvel, even to a tired, jaded Bronze Faction Sidereal.

The second reason was that she was perfectly aware of what Chejob Kejak looked like and knew there was no need for them to stand on formality in private. That he had addressed her so told her how their conversation would proceed. She was privately glad, for Kejak had a very winning way about him when he wasn't enshrouded in his duties.

"I should have known you'd be late. You always used to be, whelp." Navia allowed for a chuckle, one Kejak shared with her. Her memories of Orloria Kessen, her predecessor were adequate enough for them to continue to share the humor that had marked the relationship between Kejak and who she'd been.

"I seem to recall a rather inexperienced girl who flinched every time her name wasn't said softly. It wasn't that long ago."

Navia leaned back on the park bench and sighed as Kejak stepped around and settled down next to her. The weight pressing on her insides was just at the point of being unpleasant. It wouldn't be too long now.

"1700 years?" she asked offhandedly, though she knew the answer. Her hands resting on her rounded stomach felt movement and she smiled. "Give or take an Era. It is the 13th Epoch, after all. I was born in the First."

"When will she be born?" Kejak asked softly. His lined face looked so weary these days. It grieved Navia to see how hard the weight of Creation's responsibility had been on her mentor and friend. Navia reached over and lightly patted his leg, showing about as much affection as either of them were comfortable with.

"Soon, I expect. I've chosen not to know this time."

"This is what happens when you use a Wanting and Fearing on yourself," Kejak said with a slight grin. "No, I don't fault you for doing it. Da'nashay helped us catch Elated Fury, didn't he? Even if the Lunar got away, it was still better progress than we could have hoped for. And you seem to be pleased with the consequences."

"Da'nashay is a good man," Navia said, nodding in agreement. "And he is a good match for me. As often as he's out in the field, I would only see him every other year even if I was a Dynast. Compared to other people in the Division, I have it very easy. It helps that Rhiann took after her father and joined the Legions as soon as she was able to, following in his footsteps. She's a Colonel now, as dedicated to her father, perhaps even more dutiful than he is."

"I'm not surprised," Kejak said. "She reminds me quite a bit of you."

Among the Chosen of Secrets, it was no secret that the work of Fate was Kejak's whole life. Like any peerless bureaucrat, he was as efficient and excellent at knowing all about his co-workers as he was in doing his job. Navia understood that it was slightly more personal when it came to her, because Orloria Kessen had been his Sifu. Either way, he took the effort to get to know his fellow Chosen and she appreciated that effort, whatever the motive.

"Thank you," Navia said. "I imagine she will be surprised to have a sister. She just turned 147, you know, and this will be her first sibling."

"I know. You never chose to bear more children, something I entirely understand given our workload in the Convention on Prophecy. I'm surprised that Iselsi Navia chose to now."

Navia remembered the two lunar eclipses nearly a year ago and smiled in satisfaction.

The early days had been hard. She'd had every expectation that Rhiann would turn out to be the Pivot Child, had been calling her Yezenjen all the time she carried her. Then the day came that she went into labor and she knew the coming child could not be the Child.

There was no difficult test to discern the truth. She'd been to the Loom of Fate and had yet to meet herself one last time. Labor clearly hadn't happened to her future self yet so it left only one logical explanation. Yezenjen was simply not ready to be born yet.

Strange though. She'd spent months trying to trace out that Second Circle error, the paradoxical Exaltation that served as the primary sign of the coming of the Pivot Child. She hadn't found it. Oddly, the disturbance smoothed itself...almost as if a Sidereal had straightened the matter out. Except for the handful of Ronin, all the Chosen of Destiny were accounted for and none of the Ronin were known to operate in on the Blessed Isle.

And now, nearly 150 years later, the sign of the paradoxical Exaltation had finally revealed itself. A Mnemon Exalt had been caught with a stolen Anima. She would have thought it flatly impossible if Kejak hadn't shown her the secret books of the Ghost Knives of Thiokol in her youth. The Mnemon had used one of the strange artifacts, lost to this Age, all those years ago to trigger the first occurrence of the Second Circle error. The Knife had siphoned the developed Essence of a recently Exalted boy of the time period, killing him, and in doing so woke the latent Exaltation in the murderer.

The last she'd heard, they were still trying to catch him. To think he wouldn't have been caught at all if not for his failure to master the Earth Dragon Style. The subtly flawed nature of his Exaltation had been concealable until he tried to take the last step. The Immaculates had discerned the source, thanks to careful steering by the Bureau of Fate, and they expected to have him in the year.

Navia hardly cared. The night the moon had been masked for a second time, she had slipped from Yu-Shan, traveled to the East and spent the night in Da'nashay's tents. Beneath the Resplendent Destiny of his wife, Navia hadn't been questioned for Da'nashay knew his wife was a skilled Sorcerer and wise in magics he knew little of.

"I wished to," Navia said simply. "It was time. Perhaps I miss being a mother...or maybe I wish I'd had the chance when Rhiann was young."

"If only our workload permitted that sort of role," Kejak sighed. "I'm happy for you, Navia. I hope she is everything you hope for."

"Yes. It's time for business now. Shall we?"

"To the point," Kejak said, nodding appreciatively. "First, I have a couple of co-signs I'd appreciate." He handed over a small stack of neatly organized papers in a leather binder, which she took along with the proffered quill and ink. With a perfect grace only possible with centuries of practice, her name in artful calligraphy began flowing across the page beneath the point. "Also, we're having...trouble with Epiphany."

"That new Ronin?" Navia asked, raising an eyebrow at her mentor. "I imagine the Division of Endings can manage one of their own. Death and Decisions can certainly take care of an upstart, that is her Sifu, right? How strange that we couldn't find her until now, though. She would be Yuffi Igadan's replacement which makes her...what, 20 years Exalted?"

"About that," Kejak agreed. "Are you familiar with the details of her case?"

"Not especially," Navia admitted. "The Convention on Prophecy has been preoccupying me too much lately. As you'd know if you actually stayed for all the planning sessions instead of doing your usual marathon round through all the other Conventions."

"Enough sass, crone." The corner of Kejak's mouth quirked up as he said it. "We picked her up in the South. She was part of a strange group of Exalts called the Daggers of Shadow, sort of an independent task force opposing the Deathlords."

"I can see why she's interesting to you then," Navia said, signing the last of the sheets before her. She closed the leather binder and handed it back to Kejak. "If it makes you feel better, E'lial has been trying to convince me that they're serious trouble too. I confess I have a hard time believing that the dead are that much of a threat to the whole of Creation, though."

"Maybe, maybe," Kejak said, absently thinking about something he'd seen recently. Navia didn't know what but Chosen of Secrets had to be careful to hide matters from each other and he wasn't bothering to be very careful. A sign of the trust he'd extended her...or was it something else?

"Go on."

"She apparently spent a great deal of time in the Underworld. Has a great deal of information, although I admit to some skepticism of her claims. She's proven remarkably resistant to indoctrination or to the seriousness of her duties here. There's concern over putting her to work, even though she just finished basic training, because her Sifu thinks she might run."

"Why discuss her with me?"

"For several reasons, Navia. You've shown a careful compassionate hand with Ronin before, to very good result. We haven't had a problem from E'lial in centuries now. More personally, though, her experience in the Underworld may bear on your present Convention."

"Stop trying to hook me like a fish, Chejob," Navia said, turning her head from the beautiful view to shake it admonishingly at the elder Chosen of Secrets. "You've offered me reason to be interested. Tell me why you're trying to."

"She's been in Heaven for more than a year. Not too many have the will to be that stubborn after that. Her hang up appears to be dealing with the old Hinge Prophecies, particularly the Pivot Child Prophecy. I know of your interest in those and thought you might find what she has to say...of worth."

Navia struggled to keep her smile in place. Because of her most exacting care, no one had ever discovered her commitment to the Pivot Child Prophecy. It was a remote coincidence that Kejak brought it up, genuinely not knowing. It was far more likely that he had somehow known all along.

But what was his purpose in telling her? Was he looking for her reaction? How much did he truly know?

"You are correct," Navia replied. "Did you know that I was at the Conclave that mapped the Pivot Child? It was my very first time seeing Prophecy uncovered before my eyes. That experience is what helped cement my commitment to the Bureau and our goals."

"I know," Kejak said. "That's why I thought you might be ideal for this matter. Would you mind?"

"Of course not, you lazy whelp," she said fondly. Chejob was smiling too, a smile that reached his eyes. If anyone in Creation could fake sincerity, though, it would be Kejak.

She would have to take the chance that he knew nothing. She was hardly in a position to kill him if he did. Even at her best form, she was not his equal and she was rather encumbered at the moment besides.

Yezenjen kicked inside her, reminding her of 1700 years of purpose.

"I would be happy to right now, in fact. I don't have another meeting for a few hours. I think I'll stroll down to the Division of Endings and have a talk with her."

"Very good," Kejak said approvingly. "I need to get going. The war in the Threshold is heating up and the Scarlet Empress is thinking of committing more forces to the conflict. Events in the Threshold are going to get very dicey soon until this war is straightened out."

"I don't expect the Realm to win," Navia said shortly.

"I'm not certain I do either," Kejak chuckled. "But any losses on their part will be minimized to the satrapy Thorns. We're hoping the war will do something much more important, namely flushing out Exalts in hiding all over the place. Perhaps we'll even catch some of those Deathlord agents we've heard rumors of. Assuming the Gold don't botch it, which I'm afraid is a possibility." The elder Sidereal sighed and rose from the bench. "I don't know that I'll have a chance to see you again before delivery. If it were necessary, I would see the stars favor her birth but it's obvious they already do. I suppose all I can offer is my best wishes and congratulations."

"Thank you, Chejob. I'll be in touch."

The leader of the Bronze Faction stepped away with a brisk stride. He was an important man and he had many matters to attend to, after all. Navia understood it all too well, for she was a part of the Bronze Faction's Inner Circle. That status left little time for anything else.

Navia awkwardly climbed to her feet and called for a cloud. It wasn't a far walk but she was just heavy enough that her feet would hurt by the end, and it was difficult to avoid waddling instead of walking. It was not dignified to waddle in Heaven, at least in public view.

The journey went swiftly and Navia thought on what this young Ronin might know of the Pivot Child. She dismissed her concerns of Kejak from her mind, knowing how futile they were. If he knew, he knew. If he did not...a few days would hardly be enough time for him to uncover the truth now. Once Yezenjen was born, she would be safe and that was very near.

Her cloud touched down at the entrance to the Violet Bier of Sorrows and she walked as slowly as she could to keep a little poise. Gods passing to and from the building gave her a respectful berth, owing to her rank, her Caste and her age. Navia politely avoided eye contact, sparing both the Gods and herself the tedium of the usual ceremony.

The dim halls, lit only with purple hued glass lanterns in places, were dark and mysterious and not even the Division of Secrets knew all of the ones found here. It was often said that Jupiter's Children knew when but only Saturn's Children knew how. In all, this was her least favorite department among the Divisions, not so much because of its purpose but because of it's pro-Solar propaganda.

"Ahhh...Navia, so good to see you." Death and Decisions approached her and greeted her warmly, shaking her hand with enthusaism, if not reserve. The Chosen of Endings was two centuries older than she was but had served loyally on the Capital Convention Fellowship they'd been a part of for several hundred years. He'd recently been promoted to a manager in the East, a task she did not envy in the least. As one of the few staunch Bronze Faction Sidereal in the Division of Endings, she had little doubt he would encounter nothing but friction and obstacles in trying to help manage matters over there.

"Decisions, it has been a decade or two, hasn't it? How are you?"

"Settling in. Good thing, too. The war between Thorns and everyone else isn't going so well. We're keeping a close eye on it, though. How far along are you now?"

"Any day," Navia said, smiling with the usual presentation of persona pride that every expecting mother developed after being asked that question the first hundred times. "I'm glad. I feel dreadfully out of shape. So tell me about this new student of yours. Epiphany, isn't it?"

"So Kejak sent you," Death and Decisions said, as if relieved. "She's driving me crazy. She finished the basic training just a week ago and, somehow, she's still stubborn. I'm half-afraid that if we take our eyes off of her, she'll jump through a Gate and go to ground in Creation somewhere."

"May I see her?"

"If you want to," Decisions said doubtfully. "I suppose you can decide how much aggravation you want to take."

"I'll be fine, thank you. If you'll take me to her room?"

"Of course, Navia," he said at once.

Navia fell in beside him and thought about how quickly Death and Decisions complied. Clearly old habits died hard and she'd been his manager for several hundred years, even if she no longer had any direct authority over him. It was a mark of respect and it pleased her to have it.

They stopped outside of a door that looked like it could have been any other door in this black maze. The Chosen of Endings knocked once on the door. "You can go on in. I have some other things to take care of. I'm sure you can handle her but feel free to find me in my office if you need anything else."

"Thank you, Decisions. I understand the Mistress of the Infinite Dark is putting on her yearly festival next month so I'm certain I'll see you there, if not sooner." The Goddess of the Night Sky was prestigious and important enough, both in Heaven and in the Bureau of Fate, that every Sidereal in Heaven was more or less required to show up. It was one of the few times everyone got to see each other.

By that time, the Pivot Child would be born and Navia's plan put into action.

Death and Decisions walked away and Navia opened the door quietly. It wouldn't open all the way and she had to squeeze her uncomfortably large bulk through the narrow aperture. Her irritation diminished when she saw the cause was immense stacks of books everywhere. She knew many of the texts very well. She'd written some of them.

"You must be Epiphany. Good morning," Navia said politely to the somber young girl reading in the corner. She looked rather like an urchin, a misfit too strange to use chairs or sit in a normal way. Lying on her back, her feet braced against a wall, the purple-haired, purple-eyed Chosen of Endings didn't acknowledge her entrance in the slightest. She merely turned a page.

Then Navia noticed the immensely oversized Starmetal halberd in the corner. She smirked skeptically at it.

"May I sit?" Navia said, asking the sullen Chosen of Endings.

"Why?" the Ronin said in a tone of plain annoyance.

"Because my feet hurt."

Epiphany set her book down and rolled her head backward to catch sight of her, not even bothering to roll over. Then, she did and came up on her feet, looking embarrassed. She moved several stacks of books from a chair and carried it over to the entrance.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were pregnant," Epiphany apologized. She settled on top of a stack of books, disdaining another seat. Navia thought about saying something but knew the Essence-wrought paper of Heaven would not be the least bit ruffled from the young Sidereal's weight.

"The Chosen of the Maidens have great responsibility...but mortality never leaves us entirely," Navia said, settling down with a relieved sigh. "Her name is Yezenjen."

"Lion of Heaven," Epiphany said, as if by rote. She grinned at Navia's raised eyebrows. "Just because I'm a provincial doesn't mean I didn't pay attention over the last year. Besides, I knew Old Realm before I even got to Heaven. Bold name for a kid, though. Hope she lives up to it."

Navia looked at the Ronin with her Auspicious Prospects of Secrets...and she knew she had found the last key to the puzzle, the last mystery. Perhaps today, she would be meeting her past selves to share information she'd learned...only she hadn't learned it yet. She could tell herself of the signs to look for, to know when the Pivot Child should be born...but the knowledge had to come from somewhere. At last, she had found its source.

Navia made a choice. She made the Lesser Sign of Jupiter and invoked several Secret Charms to render their conversation absolutely private, even in the heart of another Division's own halls.

"She will and more, I'm certain. She is the Pivot Child."

"Excuse me?" Epiphany blinked at her...and slowly her mouth opened. "You aren't kidding. You really believe you have the Pivot Child?"

"I know that I do," Navia said. "What I do not have is an understanding. Please...share what you know with me."

"Why would you think I know anything about it?" Epiphany said nervously. Her attempts at subterfuge were strongly motivated but quite ineffectual against a Sidereal of Navia's skill. Navia allowed for a tiny smile and rested her hands on her belly.

"Child, please do not make the mistake of thinking my...present limits hamper my intellect. I was there when the Pivot Child Prophecy was made, 1700 years ago. It is a Prophecy I have followed carefully ever since. I know you have something to tell me and you will do so. Here, now, in confidence."

"Why, so you can ignore the rest of my warnings like everyone else has?" Epiphany yelled, the bitter anger in her words echoing off the walls of her room.

"I do not know anything of your warnings either," Navia said quietly. "You long for an ear here, a place of confidence that you can rely on. Here is one before you, willing to listen. Would you give up what you've been searching for a year now, just for a temper?"

Epiphany looked shocked. Navia leaned back in her chair, satisfied that the easy tricks of prediction that were second-hand to her would still impress one as young as this Ronin. She fixed her eyes on the Chosen of Endings and bent her considerable will to the weight of that stare. Epiphany broke beneath it, as Navia knew she would. The child's heart was divided between her frustration and her need and that weakness was simple to exploit.

"I didn't grow up in Creation, you know. I was born and raised in a Shadowlands."

"So I am given to understand," Navia said, though Kejak hadn't mentioned that part.

"What you don't know is that I often traveled into the Underworld as a youth, to explore and sample the mysteries of the grave. I've always been fascinated by it." Epiphany looked mildly embarrassed again.

"Unsurprising, given the Exaltation that awoke within you."

"What no one is willing to listen to is that I learned a great deal in my time there. I journeyed to Sijan and learned the ancient secrets of the dead. I even went as far as Stygia. The Blessed Isle," Epiphany added, in response to Navia's incomprehension. "Did you know there are stars in the Underworld?"

"I do." Navia was not entirely ignorant of the afterlife but she barely knew more than any Immaculate. It was not an area of expertise she had chosen to acquire, as she was enmeshed in too many plots and responsibilities already.

"Did you know they can tell the fates of the dead?"

"I've heard that," Navia said cautiously. "But doing so is very difficult, not to be casually trusted."

"Only if you don't know what you're doing," Epiphany sneered, her pride in her own accomplishments flashing across the surface of her face. "I learned well and much in the Underworld. And while I was down there, I learned of the Fulcrum Hammer."

"What do you know of the Fulcrum Hammer?" Navia demanded. The purple eyes of the Chosen of Endings opened wide beneath the force of her determination. For Navia's part, she didn't care to conceal the depths of her interest from this one. The child could already knew enough to expose her. Showing how important it was would not add anything.

"I can quote it from memory for one thing."

_The Prophecy of the Fulcrum Hammer._

_Dragon's byblow by a blow,_

_Honor, disgrace and depravity and discontent,_

_War he will bring, against the Pivot Child he stands._

_Before him life falters, green dies, color fades,_

_With hands that scream, he will bring forth screams,_

_And through them, destine all of Creation to die. _

_A Hinge of the world, upon him fate turns,_

_To light or the darkness he'll deliver existence,_

_But for him, the choice is already made._

"And I know that it's happened," Epiphany finished. "Just this last year. Which should be impossible, you know. It was supposed to have happened 150 years ago."

"Explain yourself," Navia said, her curiosity now laced with fear. 150 years ago? That was around the time the Pivot Child should have been conceived. What had happened?

"The Prophecy speaks of a Dragon's byblow by a blow. I know what that means now. Someone used a Ghost Knife of Thiokol to awaken their own Exaltation at the expense of another's. It's an incredibly inauspicious act on its own...but it's the correct meaning, I know it is. Doing so bridged the world of life and death and...well, it's said in certain very ancient texts that using a Ghost Knife can sometimes result in a lunar eclipse."

"Go on," Navia encouraged.

"Well, the Fulcrum Hammer Prophecy speaks of an imbalance so great that it veils the moon two nights in a row. It's the sign that the Fulcrum Hammer has come. But, see, that's the thing. According to the best charts I had to work with in my lab in Stygia, this should have happened 150 years ago. The Fulcrum Hammer should have then descended into the Underworld and risen to power there. But it didn't happen. I know that because...well, when I was down there, people were still looking for him, you know?"

"Two successive lunar eclipses did happen 150 years ago," Navia said calmly. "That was when my daughter Rhiann was conceived."

"I don't know much of the Pivot Child Prophecy," Epiphany said haltingly. "But the Fulcrum Hammer opposes her so I read up on it when I got up here. I know these two Prophecies are interlinked but I didn't realize they were so tightly tied. The Pivot Child is born when the Fulcrum Hammer comes?"

"It would seem so," Navia said thoughtfully. "But why was that not 150 years ago?"

"I have no idea," Epiphany said. "But I know he's come now."

"How do you know?" Navia did her best to keep her impatience from her voice. She could not afford to spend all day here, make it to the Loom and then travel to where she needed to be in Creation to birth Yezenjen. She had meetings too but she suspected there would not be time for them.

"Because people were talking about it before...well, before Death and Decisions caught me." The child didn't look grumpy about it anymore but there was a sour hint around her eyes that spoke of her displeasure. "Anyway, the word in the Underworld was that the Fulcrum Hammer was coming very soon. So when I heard about the two lunar eclipses last year...well, I knew what it had to mean."

"Is there anything else?" Navia inquired.

"Just some thoughts I've had on the Pivot Child Prophecy, in contrast with the Fulcrum Hammer. Dragon-Blood seems to be important for some reason. The Fulcrum Hammer steals it. The Pivot Child is born from it."

Navia nodded, then winced as Yezenjen kicked a little too far down inside for comfort. "I already know he'll be named for his mother." That much had been pulled out of the extensive astrological work she'd done with E'lial. It had been difficult to probe the future without a third Sidereal but a century was a long time to try.

"You people up here don't seem to know much about Underworld Prophecy," Epiphany smirked. "So I'll clue you into a few observations. In the couple of cases I know of where Life and Death Prophecy touch on each other, there's usually the presence of the opposite. The Prophecies will contrast. What's that tell you?"

"Not knowing more of the Fulcrum Hammer and what it means, I would hesitate to say," Navia said coldly, not at all amused at the hint of condescension that lingered on Epiphany's voice.

"The Fulcrum Hammer steals his power at first. He comes about through a violent act. That tells me that the Pivot Child would have to be conceived in love. The Hammer forced his will so the Pivot Child cannot come about by compulsion. The Hammer is debased. I imagine one or both of the parents will be virgins."

"Close enough," Navia said wryly.

"What more is there to say? The Prophecies are linked. The Pivot Child's birth is almost certainly connected with the coming of the Fulcrum Hammer. I'd guess she'd either be born when the sign occurs or that she is conceived."

"She was conceived," Navia told her. "Rhiann was meant to be the Pivot Child but this mystery happened and the Hammer didn't come. When she reached adolescence, she Exalted as a Dragon-Blooded, which dispelled the very last hope that she was the Pivot Child. Such a one is meant for the Sky, after all."

"That's right, she is," Epiphany mused. "I bet she'll be a Solar."

"Don't be ridiculous," Navia said waspishly. "She's meant to save the world, not destroy it. You're confusing the two."

"Now who's being ridiculous?" Epiphany snapped back. "She'll be the savior of the world. Of course she's going to be a Solar. Who else could do it?"

"A Chosen of Serenity," Navia said and she was sad as she said it. "Nuche Keru, old and greatly wise as he had been, one of those who had forecasted the Pivot Child when she'd been a child herself, the Great Astrologer died last year, on the same night. It was true that he was not in favor in Heaven for his...well, to put it mildly, his enormously excessive use of astrology for all sorts of things. But he was a man of vision and his Exaltation will raise Yezenjen to certain success."

"How can the Pivot Child be a Sidereal? She's something out of Prophecy. I thought Death and Decisions told me we were outside of that."

For a single bone-chilling moment, Navia thought the Chosen of Endings might be right. The Sidereal were 'the help, not the show' as she'd once put it 1700 years ago. They had never been the subjects of Prophecy themselves.

But someone had to give birth to the Pivot Child. All of her own meditative study on her role in connection with Fate only proved that she was to be that mother. She'd found the father and her same connection with Fate had confirmed he was the one. If Prophecy could provide the Pivot Child from a Sidereal's loins, then the Pivot Child could be a Sidereal too.

Yes, absolutely. There was no question that she was right. She must be.

"Do not be so eager to embrace the hope that the Pivot Child be a Solar," Navia said, her tone still deliberately cool. "Whether the Child is or is not Nuche Keru reborn, if Yezenjen is a Solar then we are all doomed."

"So cynical," Epiphany said, rolling her eyes. "What's so bad about the Solar? I've heard about nothing but the crap they did the whole time I've been here but...well, even a lot of these books talk about how great they were. They could be again."

"No, they can't," Navia insisted. "Corruption is a part of their Exaltation, as intrinsic as their drive to righteousness. There is no power greater than theirs and they proved once and for all that they could not be trusted with that power."

"How would you even know?" Epiphany sneered, shamelessly disrespectful to an elder. "You weren't alive then, I know that much about you."

"My mother was a Solar."

The admission rocked Epiphany and she almost fell off the stack of books she was perched on.

"You? You're a Golden Child?"

"The signs faded a long time ago," Navia said, although she could not deny that even now people responded to her with unusual warmth. "My mother was a Night Caste. Her name was Taking Chances and she...was the Inspector of the Night, the highest ranked Night Caste during the First Age. She killed thousands of innocents, ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and never felt the least bit troubled for it."

"I know they used to be bad but they could be better now!" Epiphany insisted.

"You didn't see my mother when they caught her," Navia said, her voice falling to a whisper. "She was so terrible, Epiphany. She...oh Gods." The memory, one she hadn't sought out in at least a thousand years, broke a tear through her composure. Epiphany's purple eyes were wide and she seemed to recognize just how bad bad had been, to elicit that reaction from a Sidereal as old and well-trained as Navia was.

The truth was that Taking Chances had been even more savage. The first one to die was the Lunar who had pierced the Anathema's disguise, having tracked the monster through Navia's own blood. The Sidereal had all lived, miraculously, but that was because Taking Chances hadn't been able to control her sadism. If she hadn't taken her time to draw out every moment of agony...Kejak would never have been able to drop her.

"When they brought her down," Navia continued in an intense whisper. "They did not chain her. They did not even attempt to interrogate her or find out what secrets she might know. The hunting party wore her down until she was too weak to resist...and then Chejob turned her into a pillar of oricalcum."

"Whoa!" Epiphany exclaimed. "Talk about harsh!"

"It made a very effective example," Navia said, returning to the present and the constraints of time. "I never forgot it. So do not tell me, do not speak so blithely about how the Solar could save the world. Nothing can ever come from their hands but death."

"If you say so," Epiphany said, still clearly unconvinced. Navia spared a smile of respect, that the girl remained so stubborn in the face of an elder's arguments. She would make a fine Chosen of Endings someday.

"I need to leave. I have an appointment to keep. But I hope to speak to you again, Epiphany. I ask only that you not discuss what's been said until after Yezenjen is born."

"Are you kidding me?" Epiphany laughed. "Sorry, but I still think she'll be a Solar. Hell, I doubt I'd be the only one to draw that conclusion either, if people just thought about it. If the Bronze knew...heh, you would never have carried her to term, just on the chance."

Navia bowed her head as she opened the door.

"Be well, Epiphany. If nothing else, we'll speak in twenty years. And then we will see who was right."

She walked as quickly as dignity allowed, for there was nothing she wanted more than to get away from this place. The ambiance of the Violent Bier of Sorrows pressed down on her, as if the Division building itself knew what she carried and sought to harm the unborn child. Navia drew a relieved breath when she made it to the streets and started toward the Loom of Fate.

Epiphany was correct about one thing. Yezenjen could not be a Solar...but she already knew one Sidereal who had believed she was wrong so powerfully to die for it. He might not be the only one. Navia nodded to herself in ironic satisfaction. Her final warning to herself now made perfect sense. No one could know any detail of the Pivot Child.

Her stomach twisted and Navia paused a moment. No, it wasn't her stomach that had twisted...

With a Sidereal Martial Artist's perfect mastery of her body, Navia gathered her control. She would be composed and serene, as she had been to herself. But her time was short. She had to reach the Loom of Fate...and then the Blessed Isle.

The truth was that Da'nashay and Rhiann knew nothing of her pregnancy. She hadn't seen either of them since the night Yezenjen was conceived, after all. They might never know, depending on how the Pivot Child Prophecy unfolded. For Navia had a plan.

Yezenjen would be given the best education a child could receive. Navia would become Iselsi Navia for one last time. She felt the prayer strip inscribed with the Ceasing to Exist Approach Charm beneath her dress and smiled to herself. It would not be pleasant for her but the child would be given the very best care possible.

Then, the Maidens willing, Navia would see her daughter save the world. She hoped so. Maybe then, the voices of Iriszy and Yelaren would at last stop troubling her sleep. Maybe then, the ancient pain of a father's contempt and a mother's hate would be gone. Maybe then, she would be proved right. Maybe then...Navia could finally have a little peace.


End file.
